A Man You Fear
by DorianGray91
Summary: Post TDKR. Alice thinks she's harbouring an innocent man. Crane thinks the only thing he will ever feel again is fear and pleasure in causing it. I'll give you a hint: they're both wrong. The question is, what will it take for them to realise it? Crane/OC
1. Fear Will Find You

Hello there lovely readers :)  
I have an amazing story to tell you from my funky little brain. First of all, an original history of Jonathan Crane explaining why he's a total nut-job.  
And secondly, a sequel to TDKR in which... well, you'll find out. Let's just say I've got an awesome story arc and brilliant character development ideas for Crane.  
As for my OC Alice, she's a real firecracker. You'll love her.

I LOVE REVIEWS. I need reviews. Without them I lose faith in myself and stop writing. So please, please, just make that little effort to write me a line when you've read each chapter? I'll love you so much forever! Thank yoouuu!

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**'Science of Fear' by The Temper Trap.**

_There's a science to fear, it plagues my mind  
And it keeps us right here, and the less we know  
The more we sit still, my baby's stuck on a road  
That leads to nowhere, nowhere, nowhere, nowhere, nowhere._

* * *

Fear Will Find You

Something was finally happening to Gotham. Something bad.  
Truth be told, _anything _that happened to the city nowadays was a bad thing. Occurrences, events, they all boiled down to one thing: a disruption of the system. The order that had been so painstakingly kept since Gotham's forcible quarantine was under threat. There were stirrings amongst the masses, like the ripples of a looming creature in murky waters. Rumours were spreading throughout the city, leaping and surging as only fire could. A rising fire. It crackled and whispered that a symbol had been seen, burning across the façade of a building against the inky black of last night's sky.

The symbol of the bat.

Doctor Jonathan Crane had continued business as usual despite the whispers. It was somebody scaremongering, in all likelihood. A foolish youth who didn't quite _grasp_ the advantageous position that Bane had granted to this city, who preferred to rebel against their own liberty. So typical. So commonly obtuse.

Did nobody ever use their brains around here?  
Nobody ordinary, at least.  
That was alright. The ordinary were in the good hands of the elite. _His _hands.

As Crane wrapped up his seventh case of the day – the verdict being 'innocent' for variety's sake – the latest news burst into the kangaroo court, in the form of a wildly enthused citizen.

"The cops! The cops are out! There's a huge fight going on!"

Jonathan felt a cube of ice slip slowly, slowly down with a soft _plunk _into his stomach and settle there. Apparently this was going to be a difficult day for him. The only sign of his alarm, however, was a slight twitch in the corner of his mouth – nobody in this room was going to catch a whiff of fear from him.

Bane would have it under control. The cops were up against an entire city of criminals, old and newly converted. They were entering a world where money no longer meant a thing, where there were no laws to be upheld but the few rules of the multitudes. Multitudes who had no intention of returning to their former capitalist state.

Or did they?

Many of the crowd below him wanted to go out and join the fight, but nobody seemed willing to clarify _whose_ side they would be supporting. He suppressed a smirk despite the uneasy heave of his gut that the thought produced. Funny, the psychology of the mob. They had been all too happy to condemn their superiors right here, in this court of thriving decadence. All too happy to play with their subversive democracy. Now that the law enforcers were up and about again, would they run back to the mother's apron strings? Would they cower, meek and repentant, honest and obedient?

Or would they join the forces that fed their freedom?

Crane's fate rested on their sway. If they joined the cops and swelled the uniform's ranks it would mean the breakdown of his carefully constructed order, and the restoration of their 'harmony'. It would mean jails and asylums and rounding up every last criminal in the city all over again. But if they supported Bane…

He opened his mouth to say something, to sow the seeds of doubt immediately in Bane's favour. Then he shut it again. Being caught out trying to trick them was a thousand times worse than staying silent. He would have to let them get the ball rolling, blend into the debate, the small voice at the back of their minds, until…

No ball rolled, however. Barely a word was spoken. For a time he was confused, and then it dawned on him.  
They were afraid to go out.

He laughed to himself, low and long. How quaint. How very telling. They were too pissing scared for their own lives. After all this _liberty_ they would still rather have decisions made for them. His lofty position, as always, seemed incredibly fitting. One of the shepherds gazing upon the flock.

Bane would handle the 'authorities'. They certainly weren't going to get any help from this quivering bunch.

Not half an hour had passed. Crane had initiated another series of trials to keep them happy, with death and exile sentences all round. They should remember his power here. His elected power.

He waited for the moment when another messenger would come. _The cops are rounded up at Blackgate, Bane put them all in cells. We can get back to normal._

Just when he thought he couldn't wait any longer -

Somebody flung themselves in through the double doors with the force of a madman, hollering for attention.  
A little overzealous for an announcement about return to order. Crane leaned forward in his chair.

"There's a big chase on! I just saw – outside – the trucks – they're chasing the trucks!"

Uproar ensued.  
Chasing the trucks? Who? The cops? What did it mean? Was there danger?

The messenger's brow was slick with sweat, his eyes bulging. Just an ordinary middle-aged citizen, driven to near madness by the unuttered information still poised on his tongue. Crane called for silence with the gavel. It must be important.

Perhaps the bomb was going to be detonated. Perhaps Gotham's reckoning really was coming to an end.

"Speak," he commanded, voice reverberating around the hall like a small clap of thunder.  
"I saw _him_. I saw his aircraft. He's here."

The timid breath of every person in the hall could be heard.

The warmth drained from Crane's cheeks as though his very blood had recoiled deep within him, into hiding.  
That definitive, unique _fear _began to claw its way throughout his nervous system.  
The only brand of fear that he both relished and abhorred.  
Fear of the Batman.

If he got hold of that bomb – if Bane was defeated…

He scoffed, suddenly, loudly. Bane _couldn't_ be defeated. Bane had _broken_ the Batman, and he would do it again.

But in the same moment something else caught his attention. Something in the air, something insinuated.  
The breathing. The breathing was getting louder.

Crane glanced slowly about the room from his mountain of desks, filing cabinets, reams of papers. His eyes travelled subtly along his cheekbones, chin tilted up in a perfect mask of authority. His knuckles whitened on the arms of his chair. He adjusted his glasses and saw his fingers shaking almost imperceptibly in front of him.

Batman was Bane's trouble – but just the notion of his return had sparked something in the people of Gotham. Different to the news about the cops. More powerful. Inspired. Real.

Perilous ideas were entering their minds.  
A dangerous hope was beginning to fan their spirits.

"Bane will have the situation under control!" Crane spat, detesting his own voice, pitched just a little too high.  
If they sensed the fear in his bones… Well. He was an expert on the hazards of fear and its effects.

"Maybe he's come to save us," came the coy suggestion from somewhere across the hall.  
A ripple, unspoken but definite, rolled across the sea of faces.

Jonathan rapped the gavel on its sounding block. "_Anyone so much as mentions his name_, you'll be exiled on the spot. Bane doesn't tolerate insubordination!"

That certainly shut everybody up for a good few seconds. He eyeballed them, one by one, in the alert and disconcerting manner that only a lucid lunatic could pull off. _Push the big buttons. Pull out all the big names. Nip them in the bud. _He was practised in the art of intimidation, and he flouted it now, silver-tongued and sharp.

He could hold them off with words. He didn't need toxins to scare the living shit out of these miserable common wretches. He had the bulk of Bane to hide behind, the massive bulk of all of Bane's shocking public terrors. If he was going to hide behind anybody, it would be the man who snapped physicists' necks on the edges of exploded football stadiums. The invisible, huge outline of thick muscles stood beside him now, horrifying even as a memory.

But then another voice, cutting through the musty air with a cold blade of dread, piercing even Crane's skin.  
"What if it goes off?"  
"Well, then we die," he shot back, keeping his jaw tight.

Luckily nobody else seemed to feel the need to stay calm.

"We need to get to cover!"  
"Underground! We need to go underground!"  
"It won't make any difference," he tried to say, but the clamour was rising and people were shifting.  
"We should go now. We should find somewhere."  
"The cops are out of the sewers. There'll be a hole where they got out."  
"They won't be deep enough! We need to get off the island!"  
"How? Swimming? You fancy taking a mile-long dip in minus zero?"

Like the many limbs and joints of some giant insect, the company was beginning to jolt and flop haphazardly towards the doors, arguing and reprimanding and bickering along the way.

Crane felt a sudden keen pang of loss as he watched them, despite his overwhelming relief.  
What if they never came back?  
What if this really was the end of his reign in this arena? He had been so very happy here. So content.  
It had been almost as wonderful as the first time he had worked under the League of Shadows. The same monumental sense of purpose. The only drawback was his fixed position – last time he had been able to stretch his mind, experiment with that incredible toxin and revel in his scientific progress. Ra's had been a worthy leader. Bane, meanwhile, already had a higher plan set out that did not include Scarecrow's brilliant mind. Only his hunger for strict authority.

Here he had taken a seat amongst the gods, wielding a weapon of fear that had nothing to do with chemicals.

_Real_ influence was so much greater, more magnificent than its artificial counterpart. The hammer of Thor, was this gavel. The might of civilisations was inlaid into its handle. Its blunt wooden face was the face of Justice, brought down with a crash onto the sounding block of the disorderly, undeserving public.

He had read a copy of _Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised _specially for his new role. It explicitly stated that the Chair should not lean on the gavel, juggle or toy with it, or use it to challenge, threaten or emphasize remarks. With boundless relish he had spent all the next day refuting every single one of _Robert's_ silly instructions.

A man of real influence should have no rules, except for those he imposed upon others.

So Crane watched them go, the blundering foolish things, and almost loved them as they made their uncertain way out of his care, into a new world which may well turn out nicely for them, but which would undoubtedly go badly for him, however things unfolded.

He sat back and ran a hand across his brow, through his hair, exhaling tremulously.

The Batman. Bane. The Bomb. They coursed through him and mingled, confused themselves in a panic. Would Bane triumph? He must triumph. He must crush the Batman again. But what if he didn't? Would Bane detonate the bomb rather than have Gotham fall back into the wrong hands? Were they all going to die?

Was Jonathan afraid of death?

Now that the immediate threat of being eaten alive by his subjects wasn't clogging his thoughts - now that he was alone – he seemed to be facing certain death of one sort or another. Here he was, quite abruptly, at the end, for he felt that it truly was the end coming swift like a dark winged animal towards him. If the Batman was returned, involved, then nothing would withstand him, not the strongest pillar of the oldest building in the city.

One way or another, something had to break.

He sat in silence, clutching the gavel with his thin pallid fist that trembled when he moved it. So he sat in stillness too. He wondered if he had any regrets, apart from the last few moments in which he had suddenly and irretrievably lost his authority, his ability to dominate and terrify, the only thing that really mattered.

… He began to speculate whether he dared to breach the walls that he had so carefully erected between his controlling mind and his hibernating soul.

Should he begin the long descent to that basement of his heart?  
Blow the dust from outdated photographs?  
Ponder over boxed memories, dig up the remnants of a long-repressed history?

If this bomb really were to go off, shouldn't he go with it in true, undeniable knowledge of his own convoluted being, his psyche, his very essence?

He wished that he had his mask. He would have so liked to have gone out of this world as nobody but Scarecrow. Unafraid, uncomplicated, indomitable. Without the actual mask in his hands, he just couldn't quite do it.

He had only been frozen there for ten minutes, distracting himself from the impending inevitable, the slippery seconds.

There was a shudder, a tremor of the earth under him.  
He closed his eyes and pressed his hands flat against his desk, breath rasping into his lungs and holding…  
But nothing more happened.

Outside in the street he felt pulled harshly back into reality, into the city. The wind whipped at him, the smells surrounded him, the sun beat down on him. So many awful elements. But there – people were running, pointing, shouting. More fiery rumours were tearing through the streets. He could hear it swelling far off, the noise, like the drone of a hive.

Soon it would make real words and his torture would be over. Or rather, would begin.

Sure enough: "It detonated out over the bay! You can see, just around that corner!"  
Then, running in the opposite direction: "Bane is dead! Batman killed him! Bane is dead!"

Why, why had the bomb not gone off at the heart of the city and blown him peacefully away?

He didn't have long to reflect. Soon he heard the tell-tale sounds of practised quick-marching feet, a squad of police closing in far too hastily for his comfort. He ducked back into the hall.

Of course _he_ would be their priority, with the superior orchestrator of Gotham's reckoning already dead. Of course they couldn't wait to get their hands on him and throw him back to the vultures at Arkham – or worse, Blackgate, even if the Dent Act had been shot to hell.

He cursed as he veered about the empty hall. To run? Run where?  
Away. To be hunted down like a dog, and probably shot like one too. Chaos was still rife. Nobody would bat an eyelid.

He stood in the shadow of his desk mountain and panicked at the sound of footfalls just outside.

* * *

"Search the whole place!" Gordon yelled as he scanned the room, waving his team in. "I want him caught and I want him alive, check upstairs, check everywhere! If this guy gets away we've got big trouble. Move!"

A full raid. Every cupboard in every room. The roof. The goddamn basements. Every corner and cranny and bare inch of South Gotham Courthouse scoured. And nothing. Nothing to show. Gordon ordered the troops to check the outside of the building and then the nearby streets, but it looked hopeless. The rat was gone, no knowing where, the only upside being that he couldn't get out of the city. Not unless he felt like exiling _himself_ over that ice.

He'd catch the scrawny twisted bastard. If it was the last thing. The last thing.

* * *

Squashed in utter darkness, trying to listen over the rasping of his coarse breath and his hammering heart, Crane sweated under the shelter of a desk for five minutes more, before he finally pushed the filing cabinets aside and made room for himself to wriggle out, into the immense maze of wooden furniture that had once formed his seat of power.

Up he crept, up and out, until he was blinking in the brightness of the hall again, like a mouse from its networks of underground tunnels. And like a mouse he scampered to the door, peeked out, and saw that the coast was clear.

He collapsed in an ecstasy of terrified relief and laughed aloud, laughed at Jim Gordon's raging voice – Jim Gordon who was very much alive and not exiled, it seemed – and at the close call, so very close.

He laughed because he had never seen this coming. Bane's death, the bomb – and himself, Crane, still at large. He would never have thought he could outstrip Gordon so easily. The mindless forces in uniform, yes. That was all too simple. But _Jim Gordon_, failing to look in the most obvious of places!

The only question was – what was a poor old Scarecrow to do now?

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If you've managed to get to the end of this looong chapter, a) I hope you liked it, and b) remember I live on reviews so leave a little comment!


	2. Why Do We Fall?

'**Toxicity' by System of a Down.**

_You, what do you own the world? How do you own disorder?  
Now, somewhere between the sacred silence, sacred silence and sleep  
Disorder, disorder, disorder  
When I became the sun, I shone life into the men's hearts._

* * *

Why Do We Fall?

He crossed the street, head down, moving with lithe swift steps like a fox between the concrete trees.

He needed to find cover and soon. Faster than soon. Right now.

Fear. A cocktail of fear swirling around his gut. It was all so sudden – where were the clamouring show trials? Where were the sweating corporates? Where was his gavel?

Now there were only two words flickering back and forth like images on an old film reel: Blackgate, and Batman. The first was a gnawing, numbing, all-consuming weight that pressed against his consciousness and drew the very breath from his lungs. While the second – well, it meant more pain, but it also meant life. The vivid life of sharp, healthy fear.

He wasn't prepared to face up to either just at the moment, though.

He couldn't go to his current apartment.  
Or should he say, the apartment that had previously belonged to Harold Shaw, the court's very first victim and one of Gotham's fattest cats.

Crane had summoned him immediately upon receiving his new position from Bane – meaning that he'd sent a lot of burly men to drag the old goat, kicking and screaming, to the seat of judgement. Then, very quietly and with no fuss, Crane had moved into the plush penthouse with the best view of the city, cracking open a bottle of Piper Heidsieck 1907 in celebration.

He had only kept the dishevelled outfit for appearances within the court. He was meant to be _for the people_, after all.

No more of that.  
It was the first place they would look.

Some of Gotham's poorer areas had been abandoned in the early months and never returned to. What with all the economic upheaval and people simply taking what they wanted from anyone, it was hardly surprising. Citizens had packed up their belongings and worked their way up. The strongest took the best. The lowest still got juicy scraps. Middle-class apartments simply waiting for them, abandoned by owners who had similarly mounted the ladder to finer things.

It would take months for the cops to convince everybody to get back in their 'rightful' places.

Until then, a run-down flat in the centre of the city would be the perfect place to hide.

But he'd have to be tactical. Gordon may be second guessing his every step. He would have to lie very, very low – no going out, except for food runs in the dead of night. Hopefully there would be tinned things in the flats to start him off.

He rifled through these thoughts as though ticking off a list. Clinical, efficient.  
If he stopped to think about it for too long, he would be bent double on the pavement screaming.

How low he had fallen in so short a time -  
_No. Stop that. Stop that.  
_He pushed on. The building nearest him would do.

Its lobby was littered with food packets and cigarette stubs and all kinds of dull filth. So people were living here.  
The homeless. Of course.  
They hardly mattered – who would recognise him? – but the quicker he ducked out of sight the better.

Stay on the first floor, in case an emergency exit was required.  
Find the flat furthest from the entrance, in case any undesirables tended to use the lobby as a meeting point.

He set off, searching for a door that hadn't already been kicked down. Those would be occupied and offered no protection besides, bought him no time in an onslaught.

Down the corridors he swept, his own breath and his thudding heart the only sounds. Everybody was probably out.  
He couldn't blame them. This place was entirely unpleasant. Shabby, grimy, depressing.  
He fought back a wave of hysteria.

_There_. A door, an undamaged door… The dull golden numbers, 1 and 3, staring back at him.  
Well. He always had thrived wherever misfortune flourished.

Without a second thought he sent his right foot like a striking snake into the air. It connected with the painted wood just beneath its lock.

A sharp snap, a splintering crunch, and it gave way like air before him.

He straightened. Shook his hair out of his eyes.  
Readjusted his glasses, and strode into the room with an air of quiet dignity that only a vastly intelligent madman could hope to accomplish in a place like this.

The first thing he noticed was that the apartment was alive. Alive with colour, shapes and scents.  
Dominating all, the scent of human. Fresh human.

The second thing he noticed was the heavy, sickening, dull pain that came crashing down onto the back of his head.

Without so much as a whimper he slid to the floor, the same dignified demeanour still clinging to him, as though he had simply come home from a terrible day at the office and decided that his doormat would be a good place to lie down this evening. His transition into unconsciousness was immediate, without hindsight, without pain.

Though he would feel an awful lot of that when he next woke up.

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I love cliffhangers, don't you? Please leave a review for me, I will love you lots :)


	3. Born in Darkness

'**Creep' by Radiohead.**

_But I'm a creep._ _I'm a weirdo._  
_What the hell am I doing here?_ _I don't belong here.  
__She's running out again, s__he's running out._

* * *

Born in Darkness

"Don't sulk, Jonathan."

His mother's hand grips. No softness. Just pulling.  
His face is wet.  
A coarse sleeve brushing his cheeks.

"Now, stop that. It's only kindergarten. You'll get used to it."

Pulling his arm again. The gates looming ahead.

"You'll make some friends. You'll have fun."

They pass through. Heading for the brightly painted entrance standing apart from the rest of the school.  
A moving figure behind the textured glass. The handle turning.  
The looming shape of a strange woman. Her mouth widens in a grin as she shows her teeth.

"Hello, Jonathan!" she chirps, her chins wobbling.

The final straw.  
He snaps.

He can feel his jaw stretching open, his eyes bulging wide, his lungs drawing breath and then expelling it again with such force that his mother and the strange woman jump. His legs give out under him, rendering him a dead weight as the rough hand attempts to drag him towards that door, that horror door with its horror woman.

He won't go in. He won't go in.

"Jonathan! _Stop_, will you _stop_!" His mother's voice changes when she isn't talking to him. "I'm so sorry, he's just –"  
"No, not to worry! We have at least one every year. Look Jonathan darling, it's alright, it's alright!"

The strange woman comes closer. He cries with more vehemence, warning her away.

"Jonathan, look now – there's no reason to be scared."  
Her huge hand reaches down to take his, the one his mother isn't gripping.  
It closes around his fist.

He falters.

"There we are, see. It's not so bad, is it?" Her face smiles from way up high. He lets the huge hand slowly lift him onto his feet. His knees are weak.  
"Your mommy has to go now, to the staff room, okay? It's her first day here too. She's not crying, is she? Look."

He looks. No, she isn't crying, but her expression is drawn and tired. She stares back at him and just looks tired.  
He avoids her eyes.

"My name is Janice. So we're friends now, aren't we?"  
He blinks. Transfers his gaze to the woman. Nods blankly.

His mother abruptly lets go of him, emitting a sharp, "Be good. I'll see you at recess."

That other hand, the woman's hand, is left. It squeezes his so lightly, so gently.  
"Come along then, Jonathan. Your mommy has to get here early for her job, so the other children aren't here yet. Can I show you around kindergarten? We can play a game while we wait. What's your favourite game?"

Her soft hand.  
It's the only reason he allows himself to be coaxed through that horror door into that horror place, and shown around the playground and the sandbox and the games room and the cloak room and the learning areas.

He lingers next to the book shelf. There is a brightly coloured book that has caught his eye.  
It has animals and insects all over it.

* * *

He sits curled up on a cushion, nose almost pressed to the crisp shiny white paper. Janice gave up trying to engage with him a good fifteen minutes ago. She said if he needed any help with reading, he should let her know. That book was normally taken out at the end of kindergarten when they were more grown up. But he doesn't see why. The words aren't hard. Now it's just him, the bugs and the animals. Where they live, what they eat, how they all connect. It's a new world but it isn't frightening. Not one bit.

He doesn't notice that another child has arrived until she is crouching right in front of him.

"Hellooo," she trills. "What's _your_ name?"  
Panic floods through him. He freezes up like a stick insect with no branch to hide on.

She waits. Gets impatient.  
"_My _name is _Lucy_." Her quick, eager eyes gobble up his book. "What are you reading?"

He inches it away from her and closes it slightly.  
It's not her world. It's his.

"Lovely! You two are making friends already," Janice says warmly.  
"He won't _talk_ to me," Lucy tells.  
"Well, that's not very nice, is it Jonathan?"  
"Jonathan? So _that's_ your name."

Right at that moment another one comes in, letting go of his mother's hand as soon as he's through the door.  
Lucy lights up.

"Hellooo! What's _your _name?"  
"Sam."  
"_My _name is _Lucy_. Janice, can I play Hungry Hungry Hippos with Sam pleeease?"  
"Of course you can, Lucy! How nicely you asked!"

Slowly the room fills up, and they all sit on the carpet. He has to leave his book on the shelf.  
When it's his turn to say hello and introduce himself, he speaks to the carpet and mutters.

Nobody likes him for that.

* * *

"Hey!" Sam's commanding tone rings out directly behind him.  
His personal space is invaded – once again – as the boy flings himself onto the grass beside him, staining his knees.  
"What have you got this time?"

Jonathan closes his fist around the Common Black Ground Beetle. He can feel its little legs scuttling against his skin.  
Then a sharp, focused pain. Biting.

"Ahh!" He jumps, his hand flying open instinctively. The insect lands on the grass in front of them.  
Jonathan looks at Sam as Sam looks at the beetle. Something glitters in his eyes, a kind of greed or malice.  
He picks it up by the sides, so it can't turn around and nip him.

"What are you _doing _with it anyway?"  
Silence.

Sam reaches out and pinches his arm, hard. Tears start into his eyes as he sucks in a breath.  
"What are you _doing _with it?"

"Watching it."  
"How is _that _fun? Why don't you want to _play_?"  
"I don't."  
"Why don't you go on the climbing frame?"  
Silence.

"Do you like swings?"  
"I like watching."

Sam stands up, through with his inquisition.  
He looks disappointed. He had been looking for a new playmate – Harry wasn't talking to him since their fight – but everyone else was already taken. Jonathan had been a last effort. But he would much rather climb on his own than watch some creepy crawly with this unresponsive boy.

"I don't get you," Sam states simply, before throwing the bug as far as he can across the grass, and heading off to the roundabout.

Jonathan relaxes, and resumes his search for something more exciting than a Common Black Ground Beetle.

* * *

"Hey!"

Jonathan's nose is so close to the ground that all it takes is a nudge in the back of the head for him to get a face full of dirt.

"Oops," Sam says, more than half amused at his mistake. "Watching bugs again?"  
"Yes."  
"What have you found?"

He hates it when they fake interest. As though insects deserve to be condescended. As if they aren't worth anyone's time.  
So he doesn't answer.

"Hey! What have you _found_?"

No pinches from Sam now. That was kindergarten. This is first grade.  
These days it's a punch in the arm.

He hisses quietly as he feels the bruise, but ignores Sam all the same. Perhaps he'll get bored.

No such luck. A brute set of thick fingers appear in front of them, and promptly squash the crab spider that had been resting so delicately on the petal of its flower. Jonathan feels the death like a sting at his own body. Something of the spider begins to quiver in his muscles.

A hand whips out – his hand – and strikes Sam across the face.

Then he's on the floor and Sam is sitting on top of him, raising a fist. And then his jaw hurts on his left side.  
Finally, he hears the shouts of his mother as she comes marching over.

"Get off him this instant! Get off!"  
She grabs Sam unceremoniously and hauls him to his feet. Then she does the same to Jonathan.  
"He hit me first, Mrs Crane."

Those fatal words. They make his limbs tingle and his face go hot. It's not _his_ fault.  
Sam has hit _him_ loads of times before. And his mother knows so.

She stands over them, and he already knows that she won't side with him. She stops the fights every time, but she doesn't _help _him. Never has, never will.  
She will just look uneasy, and send him to the Principal with whatever boy has been hitting him.

She pulls that face now. That face that says so much. But he doesn't understand the _things _it's saying. He only knows it makes his stomach twinge.  
Her hand extends to point in the familiar direction.  
"Principal's office," she snaps.

* * *

So, the first portion of Crane's story. A little different to the usual abusive grandmother scenario! I hope you like it. Drop me a review to let me know and I'll update this time tomorrow!


	4. Death by Exile

**'Mad World' by Erlend Bratland.**

_Went to school and I was very nervous_  
_No one knew me, no one knew me_  
_Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson_  
_Look right through me, look right through me  
__I find it hard to tell you_, _I find it hard to take_  
_When people run in circles i__t's a very, very  
Mad world._

* * *

Death by Exile

He lies sprawled out across the lounge floor, twirling the small screwdriver in his fingers. He is warm with pride and satisfaction. Looking at all the little pieces, side by side on the carpet, black and shimmering. Every tiny bit that had all fitted into that one solid whole radio.

"Jonathan!"

He flinches and looks up like a fox cub at the end of a double barrelled gun.

"What are you doing? What is that?"  
"It's the radio."  
"You took the radio apart?"  
"I wanted to see how it worked. I can maybe put it back."

His father grants him a glowering silence in reply.

"Do you know how much that radio cost?"  
"I can maybe put it back."  
"Jonathan, I don't _work _all the hours that I _work_ –"  
"As a bookkeeping clerk, Daddy."  
"– to pay for you to take my _belongings _to pieces."

"I can maybe put it back."  
"Well if you don't, Jonathan, there'll be no candy for a whole month. Let me assure you of that."  
"A whole month?"  
"_Yes_, a whole month. You don't – it's not _yours _to touch Jonathan, my belongings are _important _to me. I paid _good money _for them. You hear?"

With that his father puts down his briefcase, stomps into the kitchen to enquire why on earth Jonathan's mother hadn't seen him taking apart the radio – taking apart the radio? she asks – yes, taking apart the radio that he paid _fifty dollars_ for – and then stomps back out of the kitchen so he can stomp out to the garden instead, and tend to his two apple trees and one cherry tree and the vegetables in his vegetable patch before the sun goes down.

* * *

The leather is cool against his legs, sharply so where his school shorts stop just above his knees.

He likes this room. It has lots of shelves with lots of books on. _Science _books. It's also cosy despite being a doctor's room. His previous experience of doctor's rooms is clinical dullness. But there's a soft elephant cushion on his chair, and photos and ornaments on the desk. He also likes the doctor, who is grey and kindly-faced with twinkly eyes.

"Jonathan," he says in a voice that sounds like smiles, so different from the other voices that are addressed to him. "Would you mind stepping outside for a moment? There's a chair halfway down the corridor for you to sit on."

He slips down without a word and closes the door behind him.

The chair is waiting for him all the way over there.  
But he doesn't go to it, like he's been told. Of course it's naughty not to do what you're told, but he's curious.

If he's at the doctor's there must be something the matter.  
If they've sent him out it most likely means they want to discuss what's the matter without him.  
They don't want to include him. They're not the first. But he wants to hear all the same.

With his ear pressed against the wood he can hear everything. His mother's voice is slightly off. Eerie.

"One of the teachers mentioned – I'd never thought of it before – is it? Is he?"  
"Jonathan is suffering from mild autism, yes, Mrs Crane."  
"Well what are you going to do about it?"  
"Mrs Crane, there is no medical cure –"  
"What other cures are there?"

"It's really only a case of curbing symptoms –"  
"_Curbing symptoms_?"  
"Yes, Mrs Crane. Jonathan will have extra help from his school, an assistant –"  
"He doesn't need _help_, he's very intelligent –"  
"Yes, but he does need support in his interactions with others."

A dense silence.

"And what about me? His father and I?"  
"I'll start by giving you a leaflet to read through. Once you've covered all of the basic points we can analyse Jonathan's requirements and make them a focal point for your home life."  
"Our _home life_."

The bitterness in her voice is unmistakable. Jonathan's heart pulses and thrums and squelches blood at an awfully high rate.  
Is he in trouble for having autism? Is she going to be angry with him?

"Doctor Seaton, I – I don't –" A deep breath, shaking. "He's – are you sure there's no cure? Is that _all _I can do, _support _him and read _leaflets_ –"  
"Mrs Crane, with the right attitude his condition has the potential to improve vastly. He's only six."  
"Yes but he's never going to be – _normal_, is he?"

Jonathan stifles a small sound.

"Normal is a term thrown around a lot in situations like this."  
"Be straight with me. Is he going to be an emotional cripple for the _rest _of his life?"  
"Now, Mrs Crane. Jonathan has trouble expressing his feelings. That's not to say he doesn't _have _any."  
"Well, I've never seen any evidence."  
"Mrs Crane. Please. Go home and read the leaflet. Take some time to let this settle. Then come back to me."

He rushes to the chair halfway down the hall and sits like a good boy, hands in his lap, spine straight, shoulders back.

She emerges looking ragged, like somebody who has just been shaken hard, like an old doll.  
It's one of the few times she has really tried to smile at him.

* * *

Jonathan enjoys watching the birds at home. Birds don't stick around at school because of the noisy children. If only they would all sit down and be quiet, maybe the birds would come. But nobody wants to be quiet except for him.

Here in his back garden, before his father gets home from work and goes out to shout at them, there are a few birds amongst the grass or on the fence. They hop and stop and look about with their beady eyes full of life and alert knowledge, wondering what worms they can find.

Except for the crows, of course.

His father _hates _the crows more than any other bird because, he says, they eat his vegetable patch and his cherries and apples. Eat away at them like awful vermin and ruin his lovely fresh greens and fruits. There are no _homely meals_ if the crows come. And so Jonathan watches the wonderful birds and also keeps an eye out for nasty crows. When he tells his father that he's chased away some crows he gets a smile, and maybe a dollar for candy.

There is an old scarecrow that sits in the vegetable patch that is meant to scare away crows. But crows aren't scared of much, least of all wads of mouldy old straw and a badly stitched Hessian mask. Jonathan is terrified of that scarecrow with its lopsided leering smile and its empty sockets of darkness and the bit of rope looped around its neck holding its head to its body. But crows don't see the same meaning in frightening faces. To them it's just a dead thing. If it moved maybe then they would see the face and get scared to death.

Jonathan's bedroom window faces out over the garden, and every night he checks outside from that window, looking for signs that the scarecrow has tried to get down from its pole, or if its pole has moved closer. He measures it by the vegetables, their precise relation of distance.

The scarecrow never does move. But every night he checks.

One day, the crows aren't scared of Jonathan either. They caw with their gaping mouths and flutter away before lurching back again, pecking at the parsnips that are just poking out of the earth.

He has an incredibly clever idea.

Untying the rope from the scarecrow's neck, he tears the small burlap sack from the straw body and empties its stuffing. Then he fits it over his head, so that the sockets are aligned with his own eyes and he can see. Then he runs at those crows, roaring with all his might, and away they fly like silly scaredy-cats.

No, they won't be back any time soon.

"Mommy!" he shouts in an unusual ecstasy of open delight, running towards the house and peering in through the kitchen window. She isn't there. She must be in the lounge. "Mommy! I scared them off!"

Her shape appears around the door, quickly, urgently.  
Then he hears a horrifying piercing scream that cuts right through him and jolts his nerves.

His mother stands with a hand over her heart, mouth agape, breathing heavily.  
"Jonathan!" she cries, but has no more to say.  
"Look Mommy, I scared the crows a lot this time!"  
"You scared _me_. Don't ever do that again."

Then he realises.  
She thought that he was the old scarecrow, come down from his pole at last, just like he checks for every night.  
She had been scared of the old scarecrow.

He laughs aloud, a strangely high laugh. Frightening crows is one thing. Frightening a person, though. That's great.  
He suddenly thinks of Sam, who loves to make _him_ scared.  
He feels ill.

Picking up the stuffing, he puts it back into the sack and ties the sack back onto the body.

He doesn't tell his father about his genius idea that night. He can feel his mother's eyes on him in a way that makes him feel uncomfortable, sort of prickly on his neck. And besides, he is beginning to suspect that his father is tired of his stories about the crows.

Adults don't like to repeat things as many times as he does. They don't find it comforting like him.

They just start to find him boring.

* * *

An unnatural sound floats down the hallway and into Jonathan's room through the crack under his door.  
It is his mother raising her voice.

He creeps, creeps, creeps down the corridor and crouches like a cat outside their bedroom, listening intently.

"Now look, don't get all emotional," says his father.  
"Emotional? I am the _only one _in this house who is even _a little _emotional and I am _persecuted _for it!"  
"Shush. He'll hear you."  
"Let him! I don't care. I don't give a fuck what he hears!"  
"You don't mean that."  
"George, I can't do it any more, I can't do it! He's just – he's just –"

"Doctor Seaton said –"  
"_Doctor Seaton _doesn't know _hell _about it. He doesn't know _hell_ about not being able to love your own child."

Jonathan stops breathing.

"You take that back."  
"I won't, I won't! He's my son and I won't lie about him!" She is crying. "I want to love him, I want to _hug _him and tell him nice things and _help _him. But I can't, I can't do it. He just looks at my mouth – never my eyes, George – he won't ever look in my eyes, and how can I even – if I can't even get him to do _that_, then what is this? It's like having an alien. Having a cat would be more rewarding, having a _gerbil _for Christ sake."

"You're exaggerating. He does have feelings."  
"But I don't even know if he loves me! How can I love him not knowing if there's anything - anything at all?"  
"It's just a label, this thing. It's making you see differently."  
"I knew before the doctor's George, and you did too. We just couldn't admit - there's something always _there_, or _not_ there. I don't know. I just – I can't take it. I don't want some ghost wandering around where my _son_ should be."

A pause.

"Well, he's the only son you've got, so you'd better accept him for who he is."  
"You're one to talk! You're too fucking obsessed with him touching your _junk _than paying attention to him."  
"Do you not want a nice house, is that it? Do you want to live in a shabby flat somewhere?"  
"If it meant you'd take your share of him, then yes. You don't understand because you don't share _anything _with that boy."

"We don't have the same interests at all, you know that."  
"Neither do we!"  
"Do you mean you and _him_ or you and _me_, Sarah?"

Another pause.

"Do you really expect me to answer that?"  
"I'm going for a walk."  
"Yes, another one of your walks. That's fucking _fine_ by me. If you'd rather go for a walk than make love to your wife –"  
"You obviously aren't in the mood right now, are you?"  
"That's not the point!"  
"What _is _the point then, Sarah? What is it? I'd really like to fucking know."

"George, what if – would you give me another child?"  
"What?"  
"You heard me. Another one. Who won't be – like him. Give me something to _love_, George, for Christ sake, if it's not going to be you any more."

Jonathan has heard enough.

He's just pulled the covers over his head when he hears the soft snap of that door opening and closing, and then the front door key sliding home too.  
His father, going out, in the dead of night. For a walk.

Jonathan doesn't cry often. But this night is one of those nights when he just has to bite into his pillow and let the noises come, keen howls ripping and lurching like waves, as though they will never stop.

This is the night that the uneasiness which has pervaded his whole young life stops being uneasiness, and becomes something else entirely.  
A fear that will rub him raw, that will grate at him day by day in quiet subtle malice. Never ending. Never merciful.

It is also the night that he starts having bad dreams.


	5. A Fire Rises

'**The Fear' by Ben Howard.**

_Mama, cold hearted child, tell me where it all falls. This apathy you feel will make fools of us all.  
I've been worrying that my time is a little unclear. I've been worrying that I'm losing the ones I hold dear.  
I've been worrying that we all live our lives in the confines of fear, oh.  
I will become what I deserve._

* * *

A Fire Rises

The dull throbbing ache centred at the back of his brain roused him to consciousness. He must have brought on a headache from crying so much last night… The pit of his stomach lurched and writhed within him as the memory came flooding back, real, inescapable. Never would he be able to shake those words from his mind. His own mother's words.

_He doesn't know hell about not being able to love your own child_.

Perhaps he would never move from this bed again. Perhaps it was better. Perhaps if he always slept, she would come in and kiss his head with a mouth shaped like love, like she used to in the night time…

He felt cold. His arm flexed towards where the duvet would be bunched around his feet, kicked away during his nightmare.

But he couldn't move.

In that instant he knew where he was, who he was, and when. His body jerked as though he'd been dunked in cold water. The shock of it sent his mind reeling in agony, almost pulled a whimper from his chest.

But there was another situation he needed to attend to.  
This fact that he still couldn't move.

Slowly he forced his eyes open, against the excruciating pain of the light. It shot through his head like white knives. Somebody had really put some gusto into that blow – used something horribly heavy. And – yes – the telltale stripes of discomfort around his wrists, his torso, his ankles that meant he had been restrained. He glanced down.

Duct tape. Well, well.

His sight rippled and refused to stay still – as though someone were endlessly twirling his head about on his neck.  
So stupid. He'd been so _stupid _to just walk in like that. Assuming it was safe.

He'd trained himself to be better than that. He had lost his touch. Lost something of the art he had slaved over.

Now the question – who was his captor? Had Jim Gordon been three steps ahead after all? Had he had an officer stationed in every ground floor room of every rundown building within a mile radius, or something equally ridiculous?

Had the Batman been in on it?

A subtle shudder passed all the way through him, from the base of his spine to his sore head. Like a ghostly finger.  
He would have revelled in it – revelled in the fear that only the caped crusader could inspire in him, he who could feel nothing – except that for now, he was in too much real trouble to allow himself any such luxury. The threat of Arkham, Blackgate, they were the things to be afraid of, and not in the intense exhilarating sense. In the real, grinding, long-suffering sense. The threat of boredom, waste of his talents, lack of distraction.

He finally began to take note of his surroundings as his vision began to clear. The last thing he remembered was a myriad of colourful lively things and the fresh scent of human.

He blinked a couple of times.  
Then he turned his aching head, stretching his eyes as far as they could peer, and began to assess the muddled assortments of things thoroughly from left to right. The shambolic, overcrowded space was like a thousand piece puzzle, and his brain wasn't much up to the task.

In the very periphery of his vision was a door, directly behind him. The door he'd kicked down, apparently – now shut, with another chair wedged under the knob. A feeble attempt to hold off criminals such as himself, but admittedly the only option at the moment. It didn't tell him anything specific.

The rest of the room did. From the edge of that doorframe onwards, the walls were cluttered. Absolutely cluttered. He could make out magazine pages, newspaper clippings. Drawings, paintings. Photographs, tickets, posters, stickers, leaflets. And interrupting all of this, like a sea of white and blue, were sheets and sheets and _sheets _of narrow-ruled paper, drenched in fountain pen handwriting. Small, neat, elegant.

This chaos of art wrapped around every vertical flat surface of the living room and adjoining kitchenette. It just didn't stop.

But as he disengaged himself from the decorative disarray, inspecting the kitchenette itself, the floors, the coffee table and sofa that faced the old television set, he was faced with new information. Interesting information.

It was so tidy. So _clean_. In a city almost beyond saving, in one of its least appealing buildings, this flat was the cleanest bit of Gotham he'd seen since escaping Blackgate. The couch was covered with a throw and bunches of embroidered cushions. An oriental rug likely hid the worst of the carpet's stains. A wooden hand manikin sporting finger puppets sat on the windowsill. A dozen old-looking books lined up next to it. One of the cupboards in the kitchenette was ajar – he could spy stacked foods, mostly tinned. In all likelihood the fridge-freezer was packed as well.

He had an image of her already in his mind. Thick-rimmed glasses, dyed pixie-cut hair, some kind of baggy jumper or band t-shirt, a pencil tucked behind her ear. Lanky or podgy – most likely the former – with a kind of sneering defensive face, a mousy face, begrudging his entrance into her private escapist world. A tattoo of a typical quotation about life scrawled across her ribs. A feather, maybe.

All trace of fear had left him. He was almost certain this wasn't Jim Gordan's doing, or the Batman's. If it was he'd be in a cell by now, or a basement in the pitch black. No messing around. Their vengeance would have come swift and terrible.

Now he just had to convince the dumb bitch to let him loose.  
He had a lot of talking to do, considering he'd had the face of a known criminal for the past eight and a half years.

His voice wavered between attempted cordiality and heartfelt fucking exasperation.  
"Hello?"

No more than that. Nothing that could sway the conversation in a direction that might prove inconvenient later.

For a moment there was tense silence.  
Then, from behind the bedroom door, the sound of springs creaking. Slow footfalls across the floorboards.  
The handle turned, and a gap appeared and widened, showing a thin rectangle of walls beyond as colourful and chaotic as the rest of the flat. Crane prepared his poker face, tongue emerging momentarily to moisten his lips. It was going to be a cinch, he promised himself. Soon he would be back on the run, in a wiser choice of hideout, and –

The door swung open. His mouth forgot what it was he'd been planning to say, and simply dropped open instead.

* * *

Reviews are very much appreciated! I put a lot of time into this so the more reviews, the more regular updates!


	6. Introduce A Little Anarchy

**'Pity and Fear' by Death Cab for Cutie.**

_Spare no tears, just pity and fear  
__No vast ravine right inbetween_  
And I recall, the push more than the fall  
The push more than the fall.

* * *

Introduce A Little Anarchy

Was this the right girl?  
She must be the other flatmate.  
… In a one-bedroom flat.

He registered his slack jaw and promptly snapped it shut. Scarecrow didn't gawk.

He usually wasn't prone – he didn't get – didn't get _flustered_ over girls. They had always been inferior to his work.  
His work. Of which there was nothing left.  
Of course this was just a side-effect of losing everything. He had no purpose without Bane. He had no goals. Even the thought made him wince now, burnt his very nerve ends. It made perfect sense that he would be weaker to…

But there was something _about _her.

It wasn't only the eyes – wide and large and unsettlingly blue under a full fringe, vivid against their dark long lashes. It wasn't the two neat inward-curving lines that drew down from those eyes to form a perfect button nose.

It wasn't the full shapely lips or the delicate chin that completed her heart-shaped face. Or her pale, vulnerable, touchable throat. It wasn't the copper corkscrew curls that fell softly about her small shoulders.

It wasn't even her petite, curvaceous outline visible within the white Renaissance blouse and black leggings.

It was just _her_, something that clung to her, that emanated an indomitable, essential energy of life.

He heard a muted click. His sight of her was abruptly and severely impaired by the barrel of a handgun.  
He blinked.

Apparently it was a bit more than _essential energy of life_ she had going on over there.

"Are you really going to use that?"

The floorboard directly beside his right foot suddenly exploded with noise. He flinched, breath catching in his throat.  
This was… this was not what he'd expected.

"Please," he forced himself to make eye contact, uncomfortable as it was. "Don't do that again."  
"I will if you try anything. What are you doing in my flat? Who are you?"

He froze completely, and hoped to god that his massive double-take wasn't horrifically obvious.

That girl had just asked him who he was.  
In a _British accent_.

A trick? A trick to toy with him? For what purpose?

"My name's Jonathan," he found himself saying, "Jonathan Todd. I'm hiding from some – some people."  
"_Jon_athan _Todd_?" she repeated. The corners of her mouth showed that she wasn't convinced.  
"Tell that to my parents," he joked weakly. His aptitude for social activity was astonishing when it really needed to happen. "I was a bookkeeping clerk, before – I'm really sorry, can I just say, I didn't think there'd be anyone here."

"Who are you hiding from?"

She genuinely didn't know who he was.  
Not by his face, anyway.

She was a gift. A gift from destiny, from chance, from whatever the hell. She was wondrous. The biggest relief of his life. But he eyed the gun still pointed at his chest, and warned himself quietly not to get carried away. He would have to pull off some big emotions to convince her of his authenticity.

Emotions. The one thing he would have to be near incapable of.

"It's nothing," he began, pushing all the air out of his lungs to make his voice quake and blinking hard, as though holding back tears. "It's just – guys I owe money to and now that it's all over and currency will mean something again –"  
"Wait, wait, what?"  
"Now that it's all over. The bomb went off over the bay. The Batman saved us. Didn't you know?"  
The words were bitter in his mouth.

To her, however, they were like a spell. He could see the thoughts slowly turning in her black pupils, the disbelief and the realisation and the overwhelming release. Genuine, organic tears brimmed over and began to work their way silently, in uneven lines, down her cheeks. The gun shivered in her hand.

"You're sure?"  
"I saw it myself."

After an endless stillness, she backed away and placed the gun on the windowsill.

"How long ago?"  
"About – how long have I been unconscious?"  
"An hour or so."  
"That long. I ran as soon as I saw. Are you – alright?"  
"Yeah. Fine."  
"You didn't feel the tremor? From the bomb?"  
"I was sleeping. I was making some coffee, actually, when you kicked down my door."  
"Can I apologise for that again? I really didn't mean to intrude, it's just I was looking for the best tactical spot and –"

No. She wasn't buying the nice guy just yet.

"So… what, what did you hit me with? It felt heavy."

Her eyes darted to the kitchenette, where a solid-looking pan sat on the stove.

"Oh."  
"I heard you coming a mile off. You're not a very good burglar or rapist or whatever you are."  
"I'm not like that. I was looking for a hiding place."  
"From 'some people', yeah. So go on." She settled back against the sill. She was taking the big news awfully well.

He abruptly noticed that she hadn't dashed off to call anyone, let them know she was safe, tell them it was all over.  
But this wasn't about her. It was about _him_, getting out of this chair.

"These guys, they're not the kind of people you'd want to run into right now." He returned with fervour to his alibi. "And I can't go to the cops." He harnessed his miniscule reserves of feeling and tried to feign hysteria. "I'm fucked. If they find me I'm fucked. I got in too deep."  
"And why did you? Bookkeeping clerks are usually pretty well off, aren't they?"

She was far too sharp.

"My mom. It's embarrassing… but she needs money and she can't really get a job, the way she is. I've tried to help her, sent her to doctors, but she's so stubborn."

His heart picked up, hyper-aware of just how close to the truth he was cutting. It made his voice strong with honesty, and despite her state of shock and suspicion the girl's big eyes got softer.

He had never told anybody that.  
Not even under pretence.  
It felt utterly odd.

"I'm sorry to hear that," she murmured, and the words were like a fingertip across his soul. He shuddered lightly.  
He didn't know if it disgusted or pleased him.

She didn't move, though. Just sat there on the sill and gazed at him. Gazing at his eyes, wondering why they kept glancing away from her. A sign of a liar, it was, not being able to make eye contact. He'd learnt that much in Psychology, aside from everything else about himself and everyone.

Wincing savagely inside he raised his stare to hers, feeling the nervous shock as their essential selves met in space.

"Where's your mum now?"  
"In Elizabeth."  
"Your dad?"  
"The same."  
"Living together?"  
"No."

"Oh." She shifted uncomfortably. "So how come you wound up in Gotham?"  
"University."  
"How old are you, then?"  
"No, no, I'm thirty three."  
"I was going to say."  
"Thank you."  
"I didn't mean – you don't look old. Sorry."  
"No, that's fine."

She smiled. He tried a tentative one back.  
It worked. There was a moment – just a moment – when they became friends. Temporarily.  
Then it was her turn to glance away.

"I did Business, and then just sort of worked my way into a bank. My dad's a clerk too, so…"

He was getting awfully good at this. He could feel the unspoken pity emanating from her, from this girl who was so obviously overflowing with life. Soon, maybe, she would realise how goddamn painful this duct tape was and offer to set him loose. And then…

And then?

Get rid of her and go? Find another empty flat?  
A squalid little colourless flat with no food?  
And nobody to have his fun with.

She could prove useful if he needed to hide. He'd make up some story.  
Jim Gordon would be less inclined to forcibly search the flat of an attractive girl who insisted nobody was there.

And besides – she was _interesting_. He could feel his dissecting impulses beginning to itch.  
There was so much about her that needed explaining.

But before all of that – before any decision was even going to be made – he needed out of this chair.

"These people," she ventured again, "you want to tell me more about them?"

He sucked in a slow, patient breath.  
And then he began to tell her the recent history of the Falcone family.

* * *

If you're reading these words, it means you're at the end, and therefore this chapter deserves a review. Just take five seconds to tell me what you thought! Thank you lovelies!


	7. A Little Push

'**Colourblind' by Counting Crows.**

_Taffy stuck and tongue tied, stuttered shook and uptight  
Pull me out from inside, I am ready  
I am covered in skin: no-one gets to come in  
Pull me out from inside, I am folded, and unfolded, and unfolding  
I am colourblind._

* * *

A Little Push

"It started a couple of years back. I gave mom what I could, but she was into the expensive stuff. I tried to tell her no, but she started hurting herself. I was offered gear one night getting home and it occurred to me – dealers must make good money. I asked the guy how I could get into it – he laughed and then he punched me. In the mouth. I sat there bleeding all over the floor and he laughed again and scribbled an address down – his supplier – and threw it at me."

Unexpected. Nice. Authentic, hopefully.

"I think he took it as a joke. He wanted to see me eaten alive... Some sense of humour. So – I went to this address and talked to _Gus _and he laughed as well. But I saw the punch coming this time, and here's the thing," he leaned in conspiringly, enjoying the sensation of injecting some truth into his complex web, "I took martial arts lessons at college. So before he knew it he was in a half-nelson. He really laughed then. So that was me, pushing drugs every night."

He paused as though seriously reflecting, wallowing in self-hatred. She barely breathed.

"My Business degree came in handy… I'm not proud. Don't think that I'm proud."  
"I don't."  
"I just accumulated money, and sent it over to Elizabeth. I never got caught. I was persuasive. I started employing my own runners. About eight months back Gus got really pally with me. Said I could get in with the better crowds. The Falcones were still around, never mind Carmine being in the madhouse. He'd mention my name. Word spread like fire out there. Carmine's daughter _Sofia_ caught wind of me. She lovedthat I worked in banking, of course. She set up a heist just for me. Get the vault code, she said. Then get inside that vault and open it for the guys when they arrive. It was my initiation, before I set off into the 'real world' of full-time crime."

Crane lifted his eyes to penetrate her suddenly hesitant gaze.

"They knew how to get at me if I refused. I was in too deep but there was nothing to do."  
"I know."  
"So I pretended to be ill at work, hid in the vault and waited for the signal. But the code didn't work. Maybe it had changed, maybe the guy I _persuaded_ had lied. I listened to them shouting how they were going to kill me. They'd brought equipment just in case – this was the Falcones. So they drilled and stuck explosives in the hole and blasted the lock apart, but it took a long time and the cops showed up. There was gunfire and I slipped out. No-one noticed but of course everyone knew after, that it was me. I left my flat, rented some place no-one would ask for ID. Three days after, Bane arrived. So now – well, the mob _and _the cops are after me. And that's – that's all I can say. You can judge me, but that's what happened and why I'm here."

The silence that followed fell over him like a snow drift, cold and heavy.

"They weren't after you during all this?" She gestured to the window.  
"What, with people overthrowing corporations, the kangaroo courts, currency on hold? All those guys sprung from Blackgate too, the Falcones couldn't keep up with their lists of grudges. It wasn't the money that bothered them anymore. I stayed out of their way but I was alright."

"And now the police will be rounding up their Blackgate tearaways and you can slip under the net because you never got caught in the first place." A lock of hair was inserted into her mouth thoughtfully. "But if you don't go to prison you'll be one of Sofia's only targets."

He let out a lungful of air and thanked his stars that she was smart enough to be so stupid. Actually helping him with his alibi. Not that he needed help. It was the best story he could have come up with, in a matter of seconds.

"What about your mum?"  
"We never really talk unless we need to. I told her I couldn't get money out of Gotham. She never answered."

He let her take this in, and once again felt that lightly brushing fingertip against his soul.  
Being the object of sympathy – not pity, but sympathy – was not something he was used to.  
Like he was a human being, instead of whatever else it was that people had always seen him as.

"Do you think she's alright?"  
"I'm – I'm relieved that I don't have responsibility for her anymore."

Scratch the part about giving her money, and add around nine years to the last time he'd spoken to her. All that aside… he had just told this girl a complete truth. And it felt – well, it felt like he was disturbing a past long abandoned, opening old wounds that didn't, _couldn't_ hurt anymore, not in the state he was now. It felt uncomfortable. It felt strange. It felt unnecessary to Scarecrow.

But Scarecrow was old news now. What use was Scarecrow in a city without a supreme orchestrator?  
He was a minion without a master. Without a backbone. He had no purpose, no direction, no plan.

He had no plan.

Now, _that _was a frightening thought. He had always had a plan, since Scarecrow had come along. Since Ra's al Ghul had appeared. Even if the plan was only breaking out of Arkham or Blackgate, it had been a solid _plan_. He had left those days of grinding uncertainty and fear of the unknown well behind him.

Now here he was again at square one.  
She was asking him a question. He struggled to focus.

"… getting caught?"  
"Hm?"  
"So how do you plan on not getting caught?"

He stared at her too intensely, as though suspicious of her. Ironic, when he was the one who needed to alleviate _her_ suspicion. He caught himself and stopped quickly. It was as though she'd been following his thoughts, prowling alongside him, second-guessing. She was sharp. Well – she thought like him, which equated to the same thing in his books.

"Well, I was in the middle of figuring that out just before I woke up here."  
"Yeah, of course. But what was your actual plan?"  
"What?"  
"So you were going to hide out in a grotty flat with no food and no clothes, and no way of getting to them without risking someone recognising you. That was your idea."  
"There's no other option."  
"What about getting out of the city right now? What about your dad, wouldn't he help you?"

"You don't expect them to just let everyone run free? The cops will be rounding up criminals like you said. And they'll want to keep the city quarantined until they've got at least all of their previous inmates recaptured. Despite the Dent Act being useless now."  
"Yeah, the Dent Act. I'll get you to tell me about that later."  
"Don't you live in Gotham then?"  
"Would I be in a place like this if I did? I was just passing through – _was_," she sighed with more than a hint of sourness. "And your dad? If you manage to evade the police surely he'd help you once you get out."  
"I don't know," he grimaced.  
"Why not?"  
"It's a long story. Longer than mom's."

She stood up from the windowsill, stretching subtly, and then perched again. He watched the flow of her body through space, the lines curving and moulding to her movement, and resented the twinge in his stomach.

"Well, I guess that's a bridge you'll have to cross when you come to it," she frowned.  
"That was the idea, yes."  
"But tell me this," she cocked her head and peeked at him like an inquisitive sparrow. "All these things that have happened in Gotham. The big fear-gas fiasco with Scarecrow. The Joker. Now Bane. You came to university and you stayed for a bank job. Why? Weren't you scared?"

A small tug at the right hand corner of his mouth caused him to smile involuntarily. She saw it straight away – she locked onto it with missiles in her eyes. She was fascinated. Or rather, she wanted him to say something fascinating.

He tilted his chin back a little, preserving that impish smirk just for her.

"If I was going to be a _bookkeeping clerk_," he murmured in a tone that suggested everything she wanted to hear, "I was hardly going to do it in a place where nothing ever happened." He eyed her knowingly, and said the magic words that would draw them closer together. "You already know why I'm here. You're here, aren't you?"

Her lips curved in reply.

When was the last time he had shared a smile with someone who wasn't a thug?  
He slapped himself mentally. He was playing a game. It didn't mean he was allowed to enjoy it.

"Eight years is a long time," she shrugged nonchalantly, "I was fourteen when the Joker got caught. It seemed safe enough and it was only for a month. Before I moved on."  
"You're twenty two?"  
"Well done."  
"And you're in a strange city all by yourself – the first of many, if I heard right?"  
"And?"  
"And since the moment you heard Gotham was safe you haven't so much as thought about picking up your cell phone."

He found himself inclining towards her against his restraints, for once finding it incredibly easy to look her square in the face as the hunger lapped at him. The insatiable desire to open up her mind and peer into it, like an aquarium of brightly coloured flitting fish amongst the dark reefs. Her memories. Her secrets.

"Don't you have anybody worrying about you?"

Her arms were folded lightly across her torso as she refused to break eye contact. The smile was gone.

"I thought this was a one-way interrogation. Unless you feel like staying in that chair for the rest of your life."  
He settled, adopting an apologetic expression.  
She had just inadvertently told him that at some point in the near future, she was going to let him go.  
_Just keep playing the victim. Not long now._

He hoped so. His bladder was beginning to show signs of needing relief, and he'd rather not have to piss in a bucket.

"It's just," he gambled smoothly, "you remind me of myself."  
There. He had her.

The petal lips fell slightly apart. A pang of solid grief struck her ribcage, so many nerves and neurons and synapses pulsing the ache throughout her body. And then the sudden, reactionary shield that she flung up against it.

But here he was in the midst of the pain beside her, and she threw the shield around him too. He observed as she reached frantically for him with her eyes, willing him to merge with her, to lend her comfort, united against the things that threatened her quietly. _You know what I know_, she told him with her clenched fists and her rigid shoulders. _You and I are on the same team. It was only me before, but now it's us, and I need you. I need someone who knows._

And the irony of it was that she'd been handling whatever it was haunting her up until now.

No. It had been _his_ pain, like a mirror up to her own, that had brought her down in a matter of moments. The power surged through him like a release, and for a moment he felt that he was holding his old gavel again, on his mountain of desks. He had done that. He had shown her the things she feared most in refreshed horror by making her empathise, turning her own useless compassion against her.

And it had worked perfectly. Their connection was kindled. It would grow quickly now, like a flame, consuming as it spread. She would never be able to let go of the thought that _he _was her salvation, that _he _would protect her.

How very naïve of her.

That would serve her right for making his stomach twinge and forcing truths out of his mouth. She would learn what an awful mistake it was to make Jonathan Crane, Master of Fear, devoid of emotion, _feel _things that he didn't wish to feel.

Only the Batman had the power to make him _feel_.

"So what do you do in your spare time?"

He snapped his head up out of its reverie. She'd recovered more quickly than he'd expected. The shutters were falling behind her eyes, presenting a gaze so blank it really did remind him of himself.

Locking him out.

Stupid of him, to celebrate any kind of victory while he was still in this goddamn chair. She was a nomad. Keeping people at arm's length was her full-time occupation. Though from the reams and reams of paper on the walls, it seemed she was as interested in their internal workings as he was.

She had defied him again, and he – he was beginning to find it exciting, no matter what his primary aim was.  
The game was on again.

And he really needed to pay more attention.

"I said what do you do? Or did do – _will _do, when all this gets cleared up."  
"Well, I have a decent apartment."  
"Where?"

He was about to jokingly give the address of the billionaire's penthouse that he'd been sitting pretty in for the past six months. But she was still working away at his alibi, prodding for holes, and he needed to be careful. So he took a risk and gave her a real address. Doctor Jonathan Crane's own address, from the days when he reigned in Arkham. It had been sold on nine years ago now, along with all of his books, his possessions. But he remembered it vividly.

He'd often woken up in his cell from dreams of being in that apartment. The soft duvet would melt to nothing, the springy mattress would solidify, the pure sweet-smelling air would turn sour. He would wake up, and be back in the nightmare.

That was on good nights. On bad nights… well, he moved from horror to horror, in and out, until he began to doubt his scientific mind and suspect that somebody really had constructed a personal hell for him to suffer endlessly in. Eight and a half eternal years, the ceaseless escape attempts, the security cranked up and up until he couldn't move, couldn't breathe without taking a beating. That was what you got nowadays for having a hand in Gotham's rightful retribution.

"It's not too shabby," he feigned cheerful humility, a particularly tricky sentiment. "Quite neat and bland. But I do have my books. That's what makes it interesting."  
"What kind of books?"  
"Psychology books. It's a hobby I have. Keeps my brain active after all those accounts."  
"I did psychology at A-level."  
"Did you like it?"  
"Loved it. Especially Clinical."

He offered her a genuine grin. Fascinated by mental illness. She had surprised him again.

He was interrupted, however, by the sudden puckering of her brow. Her wave-blue eyes narrowed at him.  
Or rather, at his right shoulder.

"Not too shabby, you say, Mister Bookkeeping Clerk?"  
"No, not too bad," he played along, though he could tell what her next question would be from the direction of her stare, and it send a jarring spasm of nerves through him. He was going to have to be very nifty with this next part.

"So why does your suit look like it's been dragged through several hedges and then mauled by rabid dogs?"


	8. You're Gonna Love Me

Sorry it took so long guys! I've been in Liverpool and doing uni work and allsorts. We're back on track now. Thanks for your patience!

* * *

'**S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W' by My Chemical Romance.  
**

_Everybody hide your body from the scarecrow, everybody hide  
__Leave a dream where the fallout lies, watch it grow where the tearstain dries  
__To keep you safe tonight._

* * *

You're Gonna Love Me

His brain span at a pace that didn't suit the bruise on the back of his head. He felt rather ill.

But no time for that. There were lies to be laid down intricately, a string of smoke and mirrors, and they needed all of his attention. If he fucked this one thing up, he would remain in this chair until the cops finally arrived. They wouldn't even take off the duct tape as they carted him to the back of a black van with Gordon, heading for Blackgate. A shiver racked him gently and he swallowed before beginning.

"You said you could hear me a mile off," he glanced at the floor, smiling as though embarrassed, "there was a reason for that, other than Sofia Falcone."  
"Go on."

"I was attacked on my way here. Some youths. It's humiliating, really. Obviously they were thinking ahead and presumed I was too – that I'd have a wallet if I was running so fast. I mean, how much cash do you think is hidden away under peoples' mattresses, ready for this? They jumped me, managed to get hold of my jacket. Luckily I haven't forgotten those martial arts lessons yet. So I got out pretty much unscathed. They're alright. Just stunned."

She had lifted both legs up onto the sill and now sat sideways, studying him from beneath her full brunette fringe with those bright rings: green and blue, black and glinting white. A smile that verged on being impressed lingered at the corners of her full mouth. Those corners that deepened and curled upwards – he felt such a pull in his gut, focusing on them. There was something so soft there, nourishing, hidden and gorgeous, delicious. His own lips tingled. His tongue stirred sensuously behind his teeth.

You don't often meet a person with a mouth like that. A mouth full of mystery and promise, without any words at all. Someday if you're lucky you'll come across one. Believe me, you'll be quite the same again.

All Crane knew was that the mixture of impulse and resentment were beginning to grate on him.

"So," he murmured, half to distract her and half to distract himself. "A gun. You're very prepared."  
"I have to be."

"Well, yes." He glanced past her out of the window, at the narrow alleyway and dumpsters that constituted their outside world at the moment. "With all this."

"I've had the gun a few years."  
"Oh. Why?"  
"My job sort of requires extra protection."  
"Oh. You're not part of the force, are you?" His stomach quivered with fear for an instant.  
Imagine the irony. Captured by a female undercover cop. Gordon really would be ahead of the game.

Her mocking laugh echoed around the confining walls instead. "Not quite."  
"A spy?"  
"I wish."  
"Dealer?"  
"Nope. That's your story remember."  
"What, then?"

Those dimpled corners lifted again into a roguish smirk. "Stripper."

He blinked slowly. "Really?"  
"You wouldn't think it, would you."  
"I'd have thought –" he glanced about at the papers, "don't you write? For money?"  
"I haven't finished anything yet. I haven't seen much to write about."  
"I bet that story's about Gotham, isn't it."

"None of your business," she shot back playfully, "but thank you for changing the topic."  
"I was just curious."  
"Most men just sort of stare at me for a long time when I tell them."

_I'm not most men_, he thought reflexively.

It had never been top of his list, to be honest. Sex. There were much bigger things to work towards. And his last experience – well – it had deterred him somewhat, to put it lightly. That had been too long ago. Far too long. So long that he'd forgotten what it was to crave the sumptuous warm fleshly pleasure that was Woman. Attractive faces had either ended up hurting or obstructing him. His plans for greater achievement had gradually taken him beyond the realm of the body, into the pure uncomplicated world of the mind.

They had always been a means of building walls around himself.

Now he was a man _without_ a plan, and the toll it took on him was obvious. Obvious in the way he _noticed _her, noticed the things that usually slipped. The wonderful curvaceous shapes that her hips and legs made, rounded and bunched together. The way one slender hand rested on the sill and allowed her to lean to the side, her torso twisting, breasts tilted towards him, neat and perfectly spherical. The way everything about her body whispered of tender, silky, malleable things.

It would like be sinking into hot water, to let her wrap around him.

"What's it like?" he ventured, sensing his tongue as it slipped out to moisten his lower lip.  
She flashed him a sharp, amused look.  
"Depends on the guy. If he's some sixty-year-old rat… But then, if he's a thirty-year-old stunner…"  
"Do you get many of them?"  
"Not enough."

He felt the back of his neck grow hot and prickly, and realised that he wasn't the only one exerting a covetous gaze.

How odd, this sensation of being desired, sneakily, subtly, from behind those dark frames of lashes.  
He hadn't felt anything like it since his brief spell as a professor of psychology.  
He opened his mouth, and then closed it.

"Why stripping?"  
"Why dealing?"  
"I was desperate."  
"Me too."

He paused to think. A curious, diverted smile was beginning to fix itself permanently to the right hand side of his mouth.

"Why?"  
"None of your business."

He let her regret her rashness for a few seconds. Then, "Is it for your people at home like mine? Or are you running?"  
She shifted, vulnerable, and he felt a pulse of fear rolling off her body towards him. The scent of it was heaven.  
"Do you want tea?"

She sprang from the sill and skipped lightly to the kitchenette, abruptly casual. The white shirt breezed about her.  
He tried to think in straight lines instead of curves.

"I'm fine, thank you." He held his lower lip between his teeth, hesitating. "I actually need the bathroom."  
No answer as she boiled the kettle and threw two sugars and a bag into her mug.

"I'm guessing the money comes in handy, for travelling?"  
"You're smarter than you look." Her russet curls flicked about as she turned to glance at him. "And you look pretty smart. Can you guess the other reason?"  
"For being a stripper and not a waitress?"  
"Mhmm."

The fridge was stacked full just as he'd thought. She poured a generous amount of milk and stirred as she observed him.  
The pit of his stomach felt as though somebody had lit a small fire beneath it; it began to simmer and glow.  
A guessing game was the most exciting thing he could have asked for from a girl who'd knocked him out cold with a frying pan and duct taped him to a chair. This day just got more and more interesting.

His cross-examination skills were a little rusty thanks to the eight years he'd spent incarcerated. He flexed the muscles of his mind now, and took the opportunity to look her up and down as he scrutinised her for clues.  
"You're avoiding the cops too."  
"No. Thank god."

Leaning both elbows on the counter behind her, she fixed him with a mischievous grin. Her eyes both invited and warned him away, like one hand beckoning seductively, the other ready to strike. One leg was bent subtly inwards, showing off one hip and the tiny waist bending above it. But her clothes were the opposite of tawdry. She was practically from the eighteenth century.

He glimpsed a middle-class background, a childhood full of thick story books and games in the garden. Parents with freshly ironed shirts and dresses. Religious, upstanding. Perhaps cold. Perhaps dull.

Forcing himself to tangle his gaze fully with the blue-green of her own, he could see only a kind of screen, and so many impulses throbbing underneath. Things rippled and flared under the surface. Her every muscle seemed to be energised even in stillness, as though she were prepared to take off at any second.

He recognised it from the interviews he'd had with some of his suicidal patients.

"You enjoy it," he dared to say aloud.  
The smirk stayed where it was, though the black depths of her eyes grew larger, diminishing their light.  
Slowly she moved to reseat herself at the sill, tea in hand.

"Why?" she said.  
The intensity of her stare was painful. He felt exposed, her looking straight into him like that so mercilessly – and not in terms of his lies. Just in terms of his very self. He pushed past it, the hunger driving him on. He had to know.

"Because you want to be desired by people who aren't necessarily safe. Safe is dull."  
"So why not sleep around?"  
"You don't want anyone too close."  
"Why's that?"  
"Well, they might actually turn out to be dangerous for a start."  
"And?"  
"And because – nobody will ever _want _you quite as much as when you're just out of their reach."

The mug had halted halfway to her mouth in an almost comical fashion.  
"Why don't I want to be reached?"

He could feel himself growing heavier, and not through fatigue. He was developing his own gravitational pull, expanding with every word, to the point where he could sense her limbs itching to move towards him. The space between them had become alive and magnetised.

"You won't be taken for granted by anybody."  
"But that's not all."  
"And you're not the kind of person who could stay static."  
"Why?"  
"Because you're too hungry and you're too intelligent. More to the point, you're not scared of what's out there."  
"What _is_ out there?"  
"You know. The world."

She took a sip. Something was wrong. He'd lost her attention.

"Am I right or not?" he snapped.  
"You were doing really well. But don't think I'm not scared."  
"You're here, aren't you?"  
"Yeah. So."  
"So you're throwing yourself out into new places, you're excited about it. It must be thrilling."  
"It's terrifying."

He paused to take this in.

"But if you're doing this you must have overcome your fears."  
"Nope."  
"You're running away from something more frightening?"  
"Yes and no."  
"What do you mean?"  
"I'm running from _not_ being out here. I'm running _to _here. And everywhere else."  
"Even though it's terrifying?"  
"Sure."

There was silence. Then, her voice, low and evocative and soothing somehow.

"Being afraid of what you could do and who you could be, it's good. It shows you how much you want things."  
"But weren't you – didn't you feel paralysed? Like you couldn't move for fear?"

It was his turn to gaze intently, searching the answers out before she could give them. He didn't understand.  
He had come to Gotham and never gotten away. A fly in a Venus trap.  
How had she done it, so offhandedly?

"I did, yeah. It was just a trick I was playing on myself."  
"A trick?"  
"I was trying to ruin my own life. Because I was afraid of achieving things, having to rely on myself."

The image of Ra's flashed before him, followed quickly by Bane.

"And what have you achieved?" he breathed, captivated by this entity, this epitome of everything he had ever failed to be.  
"I'm alive. I've got money. I get to see things. It's ongoing, but that's the point. It's an adventure."  
"And are you happy? Or are you scared?"  
"Both. In a good way."

He strained towards her, forgetting himself.

"What kind of fear is it?"  
"What?"  
"Is it always sharp? Or is it – every day – quiet kind of fear?"  
"I never thought about it."

She thought about it now, and he waited with bursting lungs.

"Every day, I guess. Mostly when I'm trying to sleep."  
"And you don't mind?"  
"Well, I'm doing something. I'm fighting back. And that's a shield, I guess – no, not a shield. It just makes it – worth it."

He hung in space for what seemed like a longer time than it was. Then he realised how wide his eyes were stretched and quickly retreated into himself again, abashed and wary. Under no circumstance was she allowed to see the real fear and guilt that weighed on him even now. Under no circumstance was she allowed to see the disbelief or the hope.

"It sounds wonderful," he chuckled, "for a bookkeeping clerk, I mean."  
"You've had your share of adventure."  
"Not like you. It's incredible, what you do."

She smiled into a sip of tea and threw a coy look at him. A practised look, but genuine nonetheless.

Oh, yes. She enjoyed being out of reach alright. She revelled in his intrigued frown and the way his glances grazed across her figure as he avoided her eyes. She exulted in the idea that he sat tied down to a chair while she perched, physically and psychologically, close enough to tease and far enough to exasperate.

The choice she had to release him, to let him take control, hovered on the edges of her mind with an inane temptation to finally let somebody in. But holding back gave her more pleasure.

She wanted him to want her, and he found himself wanting to let her know just how much he did. How, given the chance, he would lift that petite ragdoll frame and push it to the nearest wall, hands solid either side of her, trap her as she had never been trapped, and feel the fear seeping through to his muscles from her soft flesh. How he would sap the fear up from her honey skin like an insect soaking nectar, strip the clothes from her like petals and feel her shudder with cold horror. To have her entirely in his power.

The one thing she feared most.

To have her exposed and alone, not knowing whether he'd protect her, or unveil her worst nightmares, inflict his darkest self upon her until she begged, writhed, cracked. He could see why she was successful in the clubs. She had the kind of face you wanted to own. Your fingertips tingled as though they could already feel the warm surfaces they would grasp.

He needed a distraction and he needed one right now.

"Have you written books before?"  
Her teeth closed around her full lower lip – goddamn the girl – and she cocked her head.  
"Only short ones. A bit narrow-minded."  
"And this one, is it about Gotham?"

He had been rebutted last time this had cropped up. But now his efforts had paid off. He could practically see the bonds of trust between them thickening.

Not between them, precisely. He didn't need to trust her. He only needed to win her over so he could get out of this chair.  
Even so, he had quietly made up his mind that when he was eventually liberated, he wasn't going anywhere.

There was just too much to dissect, discover, about this mysterious and impossible young thing.

"Yes, it is. It's not really a documentary. I've added bits of my own in."  
"What about the real events?"  
"Oh, that's all in there. I've been sneaking around the city doing research all this time. I know a lot more than most."  
"Oh, yes?"  
"Yeah. Mostly word of mouth. I didn't want to end up explaining myself to Bane's henchmen because I'd been stalking them. So I started knocking on doors, and developed a network. I added new people every day. People in all places. It's hard when there's no newspapers running – but I don't usually do newspapers anyway. I prefer people's voices. They say more than articles. Much better material for books."

"And this research. What kind of things did you look into?"  
"The obvious things. When Bane first appeared. How he'd rigged all of this to happen. The Blackgate break out, the court set up by Scarecrow. How everyone else was coping. The three trucks with the bomb. Where the Batman was."

He was dying to ask her if she'd ever been to the kangaroo court. But she obviously didn't recognise him from there, or from newspapers. The last time he'd made the front page was eight years back. So he flattened his impulse and played along for the last push. Her resolve was evaporating.

"But you say it's not a documentary?"  
"No. I've added my own plot that revolves around certain characters. Things that happen to them personally. No use being an artist if you can't make things personal."  
"I thought it was your job to avoid being personal."  
"I have two jobs."  
"You have two sides. You're an enigma," he raised an eyebrow cheekily.

Once again she was impressed with his admiration. She admired him too. She'd never admit it. It was against her whole philosophy and undermined everything she'd ever told herself. But she was fascinated, enthralled by the story he'd presented, his pretended personality. He had to suppress a snort of derision towards the both of them.

If she knew what kind of character he really was.

"This might be a stupid question," he went to scratch his nose and felt his arm jerk against the tape.  
She noticed. Good.

"Ask it anyway."  
"Apart from the people you interview, about Gotham… well, don't you get lonely?"  
She attempted a smirk. "I'm used to being alone. I'm travelling the world all by myself, remember."

"Yes, of course. Of course. I was just thinking, you know, you're clever. You must get really bored sometimes, without anyone around. To distract you."  
"I do get bored. Sometimes. I get over it though."  
"And well, besides that – you're far too attractive to be alone, regardless."

A moment of stillness. She ducked her head and stifled a giggle.  
He heard only the sound of his victory. He had potted the black. He had landed on his feet. He had planted a thought in her head that wouldn't go away now, even if he did. Even if she sent him away, she'd come looking.

It was all too perfect. She was too perfect.

In the instant that her laugh died down, he shifted as though immensely uncomfortable in his restraints and smiled apologetically.

"Say… do you think it would be alright if I used your bathroom?"

* * *

Heeeey. You know what time it is. It's 'leave a comment' time! I appreciate it so much, thank yoouuu!


	9. Chance

'**Guilty Filthy Soul' by Awolnation.**

'_Cause you gotta look her in the eye  
And you gotta love your way of life  
'Cause you got a guilty, filthy soul  
Don't ya know it's out of your control, whoa._

* * *

Chance.

He really had been holding it in.

She played some music, to prevent their tenuous bond from being shattered altogether by the sound of him 'taking a slash'.  
He hated it. He hated bodily functions, their inconvenience.

But god, did it feel good to be out of that chair. His limbs felt as though they could simply float upwards into thin air and take him with them. Only the gravitational pull, the relentless craving for knowledge that tied him to her kept his feet on the bathroom tiles. There was a whole wealth of secrets and deep psychological issues buried beneath that exquisite façade. He could sense it. Just a few years at Arkham had given him that eerie kind of sixth sense.

He emerged to discover her rooting through the kitchen cupboards, kneeling on the counter to reach, moving subtly to the tune from her iPod speakers.

"Do you like Chinese? I was thinking about duck in plum sauce with Chow Mein."  
He noted that the gun was still close by her.  
"Sounds fancy."  
"Not really. It's a favourite. I figured if I was going to be stuck in here most of the time I should eat well."

She busied herself straight away, her head turned always to the side to keep an eye on him.  
No need. He was stretched on the couch like a cat, relishing the luxury of comfort. Content to observe her.

"You know my name."  
"Yeah. _Jon_athan _Todd_," she emphasised in the same way as before, "Can I call you Todd? It's much better than _John_."  
"If your duck in plum sauce is up to my standards you can call me Todd."

He wondered how on earth he was keeping up this charming banter. It seemed to flow through her, the conversation, becoming ductile and springy, organic. It was so easy to bounce off her. Or perhaps it was only his long-earned capability of sensing the inner workings of other minds.

"Up to your _standards_?"  
"Bookkeeping clerks have high standards," he said truthfully, fending off the image of his father. "But I was saying – I have a name. You don't."  
"I have a name."  
"What is it?"

She turned from the wok to fix him with a sly smile.

"Alice. Adams."  
"And you thought _mine _was made up?"  
"My parents at least had the good grace to give me a decent title."

The awkward pause that followed was really only awkward for her. Crane's blood flooded faster at the slight turn of her head, the things left unmentioned, like the last gift left unwrapped at Christmas. He would unfold her past gradually, savouring the suspense, day by day.

That was – if she offered to let him stay.  
He really ought to address that issue.

"So," she interrupted as though to breeze over the topic, "what are you going to do after you've had this duck in plum sauce?"

She was a mind-reader.  
He sincerely hoped not.

"Haven't a clue," he replied casually. "Go and find another apartment. Lie low."  
"Yeah, but... won't it be dangerous?"  
"I suppose. I'm used to danger, in the least impressive sense."  
"But other fugitives might have the same idea as you. You might run into some of them. And you'll be stuck with no food and no clothes again."  
"It looks that way."

She trod lightly from foot to foot in quiet consternation.

"Will Sofia second guess your movements?"  
"I sort of decided to come here because it was least expected."  
"No. The least expected thing would be to go back to your own flat and just stay there instead of running."

"Would you take that chance, though? They might look there for clues."  
"True."  
"Best to risk it and blend in."  
"But you won't blend in. If you hide out in another apartment, sooner or later its real owners will be coming back."

He suppressed the urge to throw his head back and thank the whole spectrum of gods and goddesses and mystic figures from that couch. Her voice was low and urgent, her motions stiff with tension. She was mulling it over, five steps ahead of your average girl, and what was more she was showing signs of _worry_. She was _concerned _about him. Concerned! She should be smashing his skull in with the butt of her gun right now.

Two sides indeed. More like two hundred. Stripper, author, surrogate mother. What else was she hiding back there?

She cared more about his welfare than his own biological parents ever had.  
True, it was only because she didn't know anything about him. The sheer kindness of strangers. But still.

He wondered what her arms would feel like around his chest.

He hadn't been held in years. Years. And he wouldn't normally be complaining about the fact.

His silence was working its spell on her. Shivers of conflicting instincts ran down her back like beads of water, painfully obvious. Her guard was beginning to drop in the intensity of her dilemma. Self-defence, or the protection of an innocent in need? There was the religious childhood, right there, working its way through her nervous system like the forgotten echoes of her parents' reprimands. Catholic guilt. The very essence of fear in some people's lives.

"To be honest, Alice, I'm more worried about you."

She hadn't thought of that. Her shoulders rounded up close to her ears.

"I mean, if fugitives are going to be breaking into flats all over the place, you're bound to have problems. I can defend myself at least."  
"So can I."  
"How many rounds do you have?"

She fell silent and he nodded. "Not enough to hold off everyone who feels like kicking down your door."  
"Maybe it would be useful to have a karate master around."  
"Kung Fu."  
"So long as it does the trick. You could teach me."  
"I could."

They gazed steadily at one another until the Chow Mein verged on burning. Stirring quickly, she snapped at him over her shoulder.

"So I guess that's it. You can sleep on the sofa."  
"Are you sure? I really don't want to intrude -"  
"We don't really have the luxury of complaining about _intrusion_. It's the best thing for both of us."  
"Just until the quarantine is over."  
"The minute this quarantine's over I'm heading straight for New Zealand. I reckon you should too."

The awkward moment when you're a most wanted criminal being invited to flaunt yourself at airports.

"Not sure I'd get past security."  
"We can get you forged documents." She granted him a conspirational grin. "At worst, I can smuggle you out in my suitcase."  
"Sounds great," he joked, quickly bringing the topic to a halt.

At the moment he wasn't thinking past tomorrow. He wasn't thinking past this next dinner and a good sleep. It was darkening swiftly outside.  
Being captured really took a big chunk out of your day.

How many deaths and exiles would he have gotten through by now?

He slapped away the remorse by reminding himself that he still had a wonderful novelty to contend with. The possibilities of personal manipulation. So different from public power. Much more challenging, engaging. He would get to know this girl, her every bright hope and dark corner. He would discover what made her tick and what made her cringe with crippling terror. He would learn her history by heart, begin to second guess her actions, her every word. He would immerse himself in her as he had once immersed himself in his books, because this... this was the perfect exercise of intense study he had ever had opportunity to undertake. No restrictions, no wardens and no specific appointments. Nobody to interfere. Just him and his subject, his delicious hobby.

And once he'd learned everything he could possibly learn... he would snap her in two and see what happened.

A most intriguing case study. Most fascinating. He could write a book on the entire event that would rocket sky high in the more ruthless areas of his profession. Psychologists would be clambering over one another to read the controversial story of the Doctor turned Scarecrow turned Pioneer of science.

She continued to cook like a Victorian angel of the house, presuming that his thoughts were situated in relatively safe realms.  
Even, perhaps, in a slightly more risqué area. From the way she continued to pose naturally in a way that best showed off her figure, Crane didn't think she minded all too much. Perhaps expected it. And rightly so.

He reflected on the exact ways in which he intended to break her, and a tremor of pure anticipation coursed through him, flexing his limbs against the cushions.

* * *

"I'm keeping the gun under my pillow. Just to be clear."  
"I wouldn't expect any less."  
"You'll be comfy on the settee. I've slept there lots of times."  
"Sure."  
"Is that duvet okay?"  
"It hasn't been used in six months. It's fine."  
"Next door will be so pissed off when they get back. Imagine. Having your flat broken into just for bedding."  
"Everything else will be gone soon enough."  
"Do you think the chair will hold the door?"  
"If it doesn't I will."  
"You'd better. If you don't I'll shoot, whether you're in the way or not."  
"That's fair."  
"There's a spare toothbrush in the bathroom."  
"You really are ready for anything, aren't you?"  
"I'd be the last one standing in a zombie apocalypse, yeah."  
"I'm kind of - mmm. Never mind."  
"What?"  
"I'm glad I ran into you. As opposed to anyone else."  
"Yeah, I guess it's useful to have someone. Hopefully you'll make a good bodyguard."  
"Hopefully."

"... Right. I'm off."  
"Great. See you in the morning."  
"Yep."  
"Thank you, by the way. It's more than I could ask, you doing this."  
"Don't get all emotional just yet."  
"No, I know. I'm just grateful."  
"Cool."  
"Night."  
"Goodnight."  
"I'll try and contribute to, you know, rent. When your landlord gets back."  
"Don't worry about it. You don't eat much."  
"To save up for our getaway, then."  
"I wasn't saying you should come _with _me to wherever."  
"No, I know. Just so I can get away without your help. Being a fugitive will be expensive."  
"Yeah, it will."  
"But we'll worry about that later."

"... Right. I'm actually going now."  
"Yes. Goodnight."  
"Sweet dreams and stuff."  
"You too."

She slipped away into her room.  
Two minutes later, he heard the key turn in the old-fashioned lock. He chuckled darkly.

_Sweet dreams_, she'd said.  
He wished he knew the meaning of the words.

* * *

Thank you for reading! So Crane is dozing off which means you know what's coming up in the next chapter. That's right. More character background!  
Leave me a review and I'll try to update tomorrow night :) much love!


	10. Decent Men in an Indecent Time

'**Snow Day' by The Honorary Title.**

_At that age, when everything is seemingly life or death  
Please let the snow swallow the streets whole  
Keep the bus from coming, let us stay at home  
So we can avoid the daily drudgery  
The cruelty fuelled from laughter that will echo in our sleep._

* * *

Decent Men in an Indecent Time.

He moves from elementary to middle school with the one hope of getting away from Sam.  
Make that two hopes: to get away from Sam _and _his own mother.

What he doesn't count on is that she'll certainly disappear from his playground life, but the likes of Sam will refuse to go away. Sam himself moves to another school – but countless more boys, with the likeminded singular intention of crushing the weak and the geeky, take his place immediately. On Jonathan's first day, weaving his path through a jungle of taller and pushier people, both straps of his rucksack firmly gripping his shoulders, he may as well be holding aloft a sign with the words 'punch me' scrawled in capital letters.

It starts when he sits right at the back in Chemistry, two thick textbooks taking up the space beside him. Textbooks which none of his classmates will ever have heard of, let alone studied thoroughly. He's been preparing over summer vacation.

The untouched layers of smooth, lined white paper enveloped in glossy green card bring tingles to his fingertips.  
The knowledge that he will fill neatly, concisely, dotingly onto these pages will bring him joy unsurpassed.  
A new start, a new curriculum, a new challenge, and the power of handwriting to preserve it eternally.

"Jonathan?"

He jolts upright, realising that his nose was close to pressing against the exercise book as he inked his name onto it. Two seconds later he realises it's the register being called. He prays for his stool to suddenly spring to life and simply swallow him whole like a snake.

"Yes Sir," he mumbles, a fraction too late. Heads turn to glance before swivelling back towards each other.  
A few snickering whispers.

He knows he's done for. He can taste the predatory atmosphere. His error is like blood in the water, and he can spot the sharks a mile off. Unfortunately they also seem to enjoy sitting near the back of class, though not for the same reasons he does.

"Uuurgh!" somebody expostulates halfway through the lesson. "Who ripped one?"  
The utterly foul odour reaches him mere seconds later, and he claps a hand over his nose and mouth.  
The class is choking extravagantly.  
"It stinks!"  
"It's eggy!"  
"Open a window!"  
"Who did it?"

"Jonathan!" comes a shout close by him.  
It's a spike-haired halfwit jock, of course. A pleasant sneer is fixed on his burly features.

Jonathan stares at the rest of the world, spinning to stare at him. He suddenly realises that his hand is still over his mouth, eyelids pulled back in shock at the accusation. He looks like someone caught in the act, mortified.

Perfect.

"_Jon-a-than_!" choruses the crowd, the same jeering expression passing over each face like a Mexican wave.

At break somebody informs him that his clothes look like he got them from Goodwill. He almost clambers into his own locker and shuts it behind him forever. He'd rather starve than face just one more minute out there. It's beginning. He can feel it. Like a ball slowly gathering momentum, his personal hell on earth at Elizabeth High School is taking shape before his eyes and it can only get worse. And worse. And worse.

* * *

In all fairness, he deserves his first bruise. He trips over the bag that Brandon Walters has left sticking out from under the table at lunch, and whilst clutching wildly for something to steady himself, he manages to spill most of Brandon's extra cheesy pizza down the both of them.

For some reason he doesn't seem to be able to just say 'sorry'. He keeps answering Brandon's accusations awkwardly, not knowing the words until they've already jumped from his mouth like traitors abandoning ship. Then a very measured and accurate fist seems to be moving at a high velocity towards him.

For a whole few seconds he's forgotten exactly who he is and where he is and what it all means.  
Considering he's just been punched in the head, it's the most enjoyable moment of his life so far.

As always, he winds up in the Principal's office with the actual culprit, treated like Brandon's partner in crime instead of a very sore and lightheaded victim. He knows it's wiser to stay entirely silent and allow his persecutor to um and ah his way through a somewhat biased narration of events. He'll take the detention, as long as it means they can call it even, and Brandon will leave him alone from now on.

If only life were that simple.

His mother is polite, if not caring enough to let it go unmentioned. His father's face sours with bitter disappointment but he too remains silent at the dinner table. Jonathan escapes to his room to bury his face in an ice pack and the new book on Biology that he's been saving up for an entire three months, relieved to finally be allowed to evacuate his own personality, his own life, and absorb himself instead in the neutral world of anatomy and respiration and digestion and the nervous and circulatory systems. His cheeks redden horrendously when he skims across the section on reproduction. Luckily there is no Brandon breathing down his neck, sniffing out his shame, his barely recognised desire.

* * *

He has almost made it through ninth grade when his father finally brings a fist thudding down to jostle the cutlery, and points a finger full of tension at the skinny, dark-haired, pale-faced boy across the plates of meatloaf.

"That's it," he addresses the vivid purple contusion that has blossomed across Jonathan's jaw. "That's it. I won't have it any more. No – Sarah – don't interrupt me. I know you're happy to let it carry on forever but I am _not_. You're not going to spend the rest of your life looking like this, Jonathan. You're going to start standing up to people."

Jonathan pushes his food around and looks down.

"You're a wimp. You're a pansy."  
"George."  
"Don't act like you _disagree_. Why don't you spend some of your money on better clothes, huh? Why is it always books? Nobody's reading those books except you."  
"George, that's not a bad thing."  
"In moderation! Balance it out a little! Go and buy some decent shirts and a nice jacket, I'll give you the extra. That's a start. Then you're going to chop that hair off, it's sickening. _Then _we're going to talk about you joining some sports teams next year. Maybe baseball. You can run fast, it'll be much better for you than football."

Jonathan pushes his food around and keeps looking down.

"Are you going to say anything? Do you know what people will think you are? A faggot. That's right. A faggot, a homo, a gay." His father's face is scarlet with indignation. "You're not a faggot are you? Well then. Better do something about it."

He buys the clothes but they don't suit him. Eventually he takes to wearing black. Just black jeans and a black tee, which will develop into a black polo neck in his final years. The goths and punks hardly welcome him in though. Not even they want to be associated with Crane the Brain, who does other people's homework for the reward of not having his pants pulled down in the corridors.

Baseball is everything he'd imagined and more: humiliating and horrifying in the extreme. Luckily it is made very clear at tryouts that he can't swing, catch, throw or generally aim to save his own life. He explains that everything is far too fuzzy out there on the field.

His parents take him to get his eyes checked out, and it emerges that he is in fact short sighted.

So it is that Crane the Brain becomes a stronger nickname than ever, because from that point on he is forced to wear glasses that are, of course, thick-rimmed and ugly.

* * *

Jonathan arrives home and immediately senses that something has changed. There are things missing in every room. Anguish clings to the walls like mildew, the echoes of a fierce row still retained within the paint.

"Mom?"

He finds her in the kitchen, halfway through a bottle of wine, looking more exhausted than he's ever seen her.

"Mom, what's going on?"

She glances up and smiles without warmth or humour.

"Your dad's gone."  
"Where? For how long?"  
"Forever."  
"Oh."  
"He's gone to live with his new partner. Start packing your stuff, we have to be out of here in a week. I can't afford it."

He wonders if all family break ups are like this, or whether most fifteen year olds are offered a hug at least.  
He doesn't want a hug, though.

In all honesty it doesn't make too much of a difference, his father being gone. He's going to sidle up to his room and dive into a Maths textbook anyway, before he does his homework along with three other people's, and then rewards himself finally with a dose of Psychology by torchlight.

"Are you okay?" he asks instead, his feet itching for the stairs, to get away from this inebriated stranger.  
"Fine. Just fine."  
"Did you… know about the other woman?"

"Woman?" she snorts with a genuine mirth that startles him, and looks up from her glass to stare Jonathan square in the eyes. She knows how much he hates it but she does it anyway. "George's new partner is called _Matthew_."

There is a silence deeper than he has ever known. Deeper than the silence in sleep.

"By the way," she calls as he reaches the landing, "I burned dinner."

* * *

To clarify, I am not homophobic! I think that everyone should be seen and treated equally no matter who they're attracted to, amongst all the other variables that the human condition can offer. These references are in the context of the year 1994, after the AIDS epidemic in America, a time when there was less tolerance. The reference to George going out for walks in the chapter 'Death by Exile' was a nod towards the tendency to meet in secret at nights outside, because of the huge controversy about HIV. Now that it's the 1990's George has finally decided to become openly gay. Hooray for vague historical accuracy.

* * *

Please leave me a review, I know the chapter's not very long but there'll be more soon :)


	11. Always A Catch

'**The Fear' by Pulp.**

_This is the sound of someone losing the plot, making out that they're okay when they're not  
Oh Baby, here comes the fear again, the end is near again  
A monkey's built a house on your back. You can't get anyone to come in the sack  
And here comes another panic attack, oh, here we go again._

* * *

Always A Catch.

Brandon starts dating Amy Lee in junior year.

Her hair is a wondrous complexity of blonde shades cascading down to her waist. Her face is made of porcelain, delicately shaped with large chocolate eyes and full pink mouth. Her cheeks are always rosy in the right places.

Jonathan's own hair has finally grown back to its proper length, after the fiasco with his father and baseball tryouts before tenth grade. It's starting to fall properly, curl at the ends like it used to. Finally, he doesn't look like a convict. Just a normal geek in a polo neck.

His initial reaction when he looks in the mirror every morning is pleasurable, before the tragic sense of utter waste begins to trickle down the glass with the condensation from the shower.

If only he wasn't 'mildly autistic' – meaning socially retarded – if he hadn't been cursed with awful thick rimmed glasses and a horror of all things to do with people, perhaps this vaguely handsome face could have been put to good use. If not popular, he could have been at least well-liked. Girls might have taken an interest.

Amy might have glanced twice at him.

Instead she tosses her head to make her hair glisten in the autumn light, like a memory of summer, and links her fingers with Brandon's as he walks her to class. She struts down the steps to the parking lot across the road and gets into his swanky black car, waving as he drives her away. Probably to his house. A big house, with luxurious décor and a bedroom the size of Jonathan's whole flat.

She is the reason that he stops paying attention for five whole minutes at the end of Chemistry, sitting on a direct diagonal from him across the room. The image of her profile is breathtaking. He repulses himself by gazing, secretly, like a creep, but at the end of the day he can't help it. And since he hasn't a chance with any girl in the entire building he may as well waste his time coveting the prettiest of all of them.

Then, one day…

"Argh!" he chokes as a fist grasps him by the back of his polo neck and lifts him clear off the ground.  
Another hand reaches around to clutch the front of his jumper. The world spins in fast motion, and abruptly his back is against the lockers, head echoing with the impact. A face looms towards him like an accidental close up through a camera lens.

"Hi, Brandon," he wheezes in what he hopes is a submissive tone.  
"Shut the fuck up!"  
He does.

"You've been looking at my girlfriend."  
"No, I –"  
"I said shut your hole! You were staring at her in Chem."

Rumours? Or did Brandon seen it, on his way to walk her to her next lesson?

"Honestly, I wasn't –"  
"You know you make her sick?"  
"I really –"  
"You know what? I think you need to apologise to her."

His stomach drops a million miles. Enduring the jock's torment is one thing. He's used to it.

But something tells him that just there, beyond the periphery of his vision which is currently being taken up exclusively by Brandon, _she _is standing swishing her hair and folding her arms, with a perfect pout on her face.

He can also sense a crowd forming.

Released from Brandon's grip he plummets to the floor, luckily managing to bend his knees rather than crumpling. He straightens immediately, trying to withhold the burning heat that threatens to flood upwards from his throat and flush his cheeks. Yes, she's there, as are most of her girlfriends and a substantial amount of onlookers besides. Intrigued expressions cut into him. This is going to be a very public execution.

"Say these exact words," Brandon's voice thunders around the corridor. "_Amy! I'm sorry for perving on you but I can't help being a __**creepy wanker**__ with __**no friends**__._ _If I ever look at you again Brandon has permission to __**piss in my eyes**_."

The grunts of laughter are beginning to seep in around his ears. He bites back the vicious sting of tears, gazing only at Amy's shoes. Her perfect dolly shoes.

"Sorry," he mutters, and turns away.

It takes approximately three seconds for Brandon to grab him again and nut him, right on the nose.  
The bleeding doesn't stop for five hours. Not until well after he gets home.

As usual, his mother makes no comment.

* * *

Jonathan is one of the first out of the school building at the end of every day.

This of course has nothing to do with getting home early. Neither is it an effort to escape the dull world of forced education, as most restless teenagers would tell you. It has a lot more to do with the fact that Elizabeth Public Library is a two minute jog down Pearl Street and up S Broad Street, and that it closes at 9pm every week night.

He always brings a packed dinner to save time.

Six glorious undiluted hours of lounging in a silent corner, unnoticed and unapproachable behind a fortress of tomes and volumes. He's come a long way from hiding in his room reading textbooks by torchlight. It didn't take him very long to realise that the library offered much more numerous and academic – not to mention free – books than his original system of simply buying a few at a time at a random guess. Now he can plough through year after year of scientific progress by pioneers whose names soon become his familiar companions. I'll give you three guesses what kind of scholars they are.

Two hours of Honors Psychology per week is not enough.

_I have found little that is "good" about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all. That is something that you cannot say aloud, or perhaps even think. _So says Sigmund Freud, and so Jonathan copies carefully into his crisp clean notepad, with the strange shivering pleasure of a boy who feels that, finally, he is not alone in his ever-dreadful experiences of humanity. He imagines what Freud would have to say about Brandon, and suppresses a snigger in the soft lovely silence of this sanctuary.

Freud also says that _most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility._

Jonathan thinks of escaping from his mother. He thinks about the application he will be sending off to Gotham University very soon, and considers that in a year or so he may be moving to another city completely by himself, with nobody to fall back on, not even his own remaining parent. And yes, he is frightened. He feels a deep-seated, instinctive terror of that abyss of freedom and the utter loneliness it offers.

He flips it over in his mind, and imagines never having to leave home. Being trapped in the same dingy flat as his own remaining parent. Forever. And no, he is not comforted by the idea of casting off responsibility. In fact the notion is more petrifying than the last.

It's dark already. Close to half past eight.  
He's gotten through a fair chunk of _Civilisation and its Discontents_, but perhaps he'll take it home tonight. He doesn't usually feel like reading at the flat, for reasons he'd rather not mention, but this is a particularly wonderful book.

Maybe he'll be lucky tonight.

He checks out the hardback, worth its weight in gold and almost as heavy, a sentence running through his mind still.

_'Natural' ethics, as it is called, has nothing to offer here except the narcissistic satisfaction of being able to think oneself better than others. At this point the ethics based on religion introduces its promises of a better after-life. But so long as virtue is not rewarded here on earth, ethics will, I fancy, preach in vain._

Jonathan doesn't believe in a God. Any God who considers it a hilarious practical joke to put him on this earth with such a vital flaw – his basic inability to connect, to interact – is not a God he wants to know, let alone worship. No, if anybody is going to be a God it must be Freud. He knows things as they really are. He knows that people are not the enlightened things they claim to be, that they are cruel and immoral… and perhaps morality isn't so useful after all.

_'Love thy neighbour as thyself'… But anyone who follows such a precept in present-day civilization only puts himself at a disadvantage vis-a-vis the person who disregards it._

He could have hit Brandon at any point in the last two and a half years. In any one of their encounters. Why hasn't he? Is it really all fear, or is there also some useless sense of morality holding him back?

He treads the familiar, reluctant walk home, watching the lamps flickering on and the world turning to drab hues of washed out blue and grey. Each step is weightier, as though the book in his rucksack is unwilling to enter that apartment, unwilling to look on those things that Brandon and Amy and everyone else will and must never know about. Nausea, shame and sickly fear clog his throat the nearer he draws.

Ironic, seeing as Freud would be all too eager to fling the front door open and begin assessing right away.

_I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection… A man who has been the indisputable favourite of his mother keeps for life the feeling of a conqueror._

He snails up the flights of stairs and finally scrapes his key into the lock.

The familiar sight hits him. Bottles, some still standing, many horizontal and some utterly floored. The remains of a takeout from hours ago. Cigarette stubs everywhere. A large shirt thrown over the back of the couch belonging neither to him nor his mother. And the telltale smudge of white across the coffee table, beside which a short straw sits innocently. He refuses to remove his Walkman earphones – he is already acquainted with the sounds that will be coming through the walls from her bedroom. Holding his nose to stop the awful scent of scummy, sweaty _man _from seeping into his lungs, he delicately picks his way through the mess and refrains from slamming his own door behind him. Freud lies discarded on the shabby desk, as once again he changes into nightclothes without pausing his music, throws himself into bed, and sinks gratefully into an instant slumber aided by his favourite Smiths song, 'Asleep'. It works every time.

_Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive, and will come forth later in uglier ways_.

* * *

Poor Jonathan! I'm really not giving him any relief with this relentless backstory. I hope you like it though. Leave me a review because I love you :)

Thank you to Freud for your many genius words, I had lots of fun incorporating them into Jonathan's life. You old pessimistic loon.


	12. Why So Serious?

Warning: this chapter contains references to and implications of sex. There's also some language. But that's it. Nothing graphic!  
If I've written this right, it will probably also harrow you horribly and do some bad things to your heart and soul. Let me know if I've succeeded!

* * *

'**Zombie' by The Cranberries.**

_Another mother's breaking heart is taken over  
When the violence causes silence, we must be mistaken  
But you see, it's not me, it's not my family  
In your head, in your head they are fighting  
In your head, in your head, zombie  
What's in your head, in your head, zombie?_

* * *

Why So Serious?

Crane flinched out of sleep for an instant, reacting to some noise of movement within the room. The gentle pad of dainty feet on the linoleum, and then the chair scraping slightly as it was removed from the front door. As though sinking into hot water he abruptly realised where he was, and whom the sounds belonged to, and the thought of having another breathing being somewhere close by was strangely soothing after his nightmares. He was so used to waking alone.

He didn't open his eyes. They were still pained with fatigue, his brain clogged and begging for rest.  
By the faint breeze of air he sensed her slipping out of the apartment to some unknown place.

He tried to think only of the comfort of the couch, the fresh scents of the apartment, the sheaves of handwriting and drawings, as he submerged once again. But wishful thinking had never done him much luck, and this morning was no different.

* * *

It's been a long and lonely summer.

Jonathan hasn't been all too bothered by it. He's spent every waking hour in the nicer areas of Warinonco Park, which essentially means the patches of woods away from the ice skating centre, the running track and the lake. Away from people in general. Armed with a picnic blanket, a cushion, food and books, he finds a sun-dappled spot under a new tree each day and settles against its trunk, solid and natural and alive, breathing in its good clean oxygen, occasionally allowing himself to be distracted by wildlife. He does still have a passion for the creatures.

He's done all the prep reading for his course at Gotham University. Of course he got in, with A+ across the board and a hundred percent in Psychology. He was informed that his exam paper resembled that of a college undergraduate rather than a senior. So he doesn't even care that Brandon kicked him in the stomach for being a know-it-all. He's found his place in the world, alongside Freud and Jung and Adler and all the rest. He is going to be a great thinker.

If only he can muster the courage to push himself.

Just one thing has been nagging at him ever since the end of high school, something that has seeped into the corners of his comfortable solitary life and begun to render it hollow. It started with Amy Lee and it's never really gone away.

Over the vacation her face has slowly faded from precise memory, and the sunlight through the trees has ceased to resemble her golden rays of hair. He's even begun to realise that behind all that, she wasn't an attractive girl. She didn't say pleasant things or perform unselfish deeds or even preserve her dignity. Everyone in school knew that she and Brandon were sleeping together, even in junior year.

And there's the crux of it.

College is, above all things, a place where people fool around. College means girls, or so he's heard. Legal girls and alcohol at parties. Though he doubts that he'll be invited to many 'parties' that one thing still won't leave him alone. He is going to enter college without a clue as to how to attract a girl, how to talk to her, how to pleasure her. The very thought sends him into a shivering convulsive wreck. He can't help it. It's as great an Unknown as his future career, as great an Unknown as death itself. The simple and yet so complex question of the Woman.

Even Freud admits, _The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is 'What does a woman want?'_

Well, if Freud doesn't know, what chance in hell does Jonathan have?

He's been thinking it over for a couple of weeks now, and one very odd, perhaps controversial, certainly deranged idea keeps bobbing up to the surface of his conscious mind. The kind of idea that only a mildly autistic, logically biased, socially inept young man could possibly conceive of. It's been pestering and provoking him as the days flicker by.

Now, at 8.24pm on a Sunday – the very last night before he moves to Gotham city and takes up residence in halls with all assortments of other students, at least half of them female – he is forced to make a decision. His mother is out, god knows where, but from his previous experience he's making a strong guess that she won't be back until tomorrow morning, hung over and dishevelled, with a stranger's scent embedded into her skin. He's been tidying the apartment thoroughly, painstakingly, to the point of hoovering and scrubbing the bathroom walls. If this is going to happen it needs to be perfect.

Now he thumbs through the Yellow Pages with quivering hands, quivering arms, the home phone clutched in one hand. He is intelligent enough to search under E, instead of going on wild goose chases after the more obvious titles.

Ten minutes after the initial awkward conversation down the receiver, he gets a call back from the person he has actually been seeking out. He tries to keep his voice controlled and masculine. Fat chance.

"Another friend?" he splutters. "No, no, just you. That's fine. Yes, I have cash."

He hangs up. He waits.  
A wad of his savings – and more of his mother's stash – sit looking at him from his desk. He is thankful that since moving here he's never felt the need to spend his scarce funds on geeky posters, which would render him an absolute child and therefore a joke to the individual who is hopefully going to get here soon.

The bell rings.

A huge man leers down at him as though from a cliff face. Even at this distance his features are huge and ominous.  
"Hello," Jonathan squeaks, "do you want the money now?"  
"You give it her after."  
"How much, exactly?"  
"Depends what you want."

The guy's frame is so domineering that Jonathan can't even see 'her', whatever 'she' looks like.

"I want her to teach me everything."  
He can't believe the words are out of his mouth and gliding upwards towards this terrifying character.  
A laugh is the only reply.  
"You got a baby one tonight," the bloke says over his shoulder. "Just as well."

His massive bulk shifts to the side, and Jonathan's eyes bulge a little out of his skull.  
"Come in," he stutters immediately, holding the door wider open.  
"Not so fast." The pimp's gargantuan face is abruptly far too close. "She comes back with no money, she comes back bruised, she comes back shook up, I'll chop off your dick and stick it up your ass."  
"Okay. That won't happen."

Finally, _finally _he leaves, and the young thing is left standing on his doorstep wearing next to nothing.  
She's not stunning, but she's certainly not the hag he was expecting. She must be new to the business.

"Do you want a drink?" he waves her in a little extravagantly to hide his shaking limbs.  
"No. Where's your room?"  
"This way."

Her bluntness has taken him aback. She doesn't look like she could muster the gall to say a bad word about her pimp, let alone insult her customers, with her big dark eyes and soft slim caramel figure. He leads her through without another word and she throws off her shoes as she bounces onto his bed.

A girl. On his bed.

"So you're a virgin," she states.  
He swallows. "Do you think you could start off by telling me how to – to get a girl to like me?"

Her laughter is raucous and humourless.  
"Quit being a pussy."

So basically stop being himself. He shifts awkwardly, still standing by the desk.

"Okay, so confidence. I don't have much of that."  
"Do you want a blowjob or do you want to fuck me?"  
"I want to find out how to make girls – climax."  
"You're creepy."  
"I know. I try not to be."

"Look, kid," she says with matter-of-fact impatience, though he can detect a hint of amusement in her at last. "You got good looks. You need to find a girl you got something in common with and take her to movies and pretend she's interesting. Then you got to kiss her a few times before you ask her to suck you off. It's easy."

And that's all the verbal advice he's going to get out of this iron woman.  
He wonders what she's been through, to be sitting in his bedroom in a too-short skirt and faded top, waiting to let him assault her for money that will go straight to the hulking man outside.

"Thanks," he says, deciding to keep it as brief as she does from now on. He grabs the small square metallic packet from under his pillow and yanks his shirt off over his head. "Now show me what to do if someone actually says yes."

There's a strange delight in causing other people that kind of ecstasy, he thinks mildly as the girl pulls her clothes back on. Something perhaps deeper than his own climax. It heightens his pleasure at any rate, just the knowledge of that success. And he _did _succeed. She instructed and exasperated and almost yelled at him until he finally got some confidence and, more importantly, got his head around the things that his body had to do.

"You're not bad, you know," she remarks as the second shoe is shoved on. "You should be fine. That's two hundred."

He realises she's talking about the money, and quickly skims through the wad and hands her an amount. She stands, checks the cash, and opens his door to let herself out. At first he thinks she must have forgotten because she pulls up short – but in a heartbeat she's collected herself, and disappears. He follows.

His mother is lounging on the couch with a cigarette in hand.

Jonathan watches her eyes flickering to the girl, to the notes clasped in her grip, to him. He notices the tiny, mirthless smile at the left hand corner of her mouth as it pulls at the fag. All of the air seems very suddenly to have been sucked out of the room, compressing and crushing his body until his bones feel like they're snapping and his head verges on implosion. Chunks of ice sit heavily in his stomach as the prostitute whose name he still doesn't know crosses the apartment and snaps the front door shut behind her.

Jonathan hasn't breathed in thirty seconds.

His mother slowly rises from the couch, then bends to stub out the cigarette. Then she picks up her coat. Then she starts to walk. She walks straight past him and into her room, and also shuts the door behind. There is no sound for moments.

He suddenly starts breathing. Very quickly and heavily. In a way he can't control.

His knees seem to give up on him, and crash instead to the cheap flooring while his fingers grasp wildly at his head. His torso caves like a popped balloon and he sinks forwards, forwards, until his forehead hits the ground too. The breathing won't stop. Air puffs in and out of him like high speed traffic, like a dog panting after a long walk, like hyperventilation, like an extreme panic attack. He blinks at the linoleum directly beneath him and it is littered with wet dots. More appear every second. The air that he breathes out is turning to noise, a kind of keening, wailing. He can't think. He can only keep from screaming, keep the volume down in case next door comes knocking in his disgusting grey vest and sandals.

Gradually he becomes aware that there is something else besides the hysteria that scours his insides and throttles him from within. There is something stronger, something burning at his core, in his gut. It suppresses the moans just long enough for him to get to his feet, and stagger to her room, and kick the door open.

She gazes at him from the dresser drawer where she's taking her make-up off.

It rises in him, up through his stomach like a flame and into his lungs. It is what we would very mildly term 'anger'. In Jonathan's case, there isn't a word for it. It can only ever be a feeling, the strongest he's ever felt. And for once, it allows him to be brave. It allows him to speak his mind.

"The night you told dad that you don't love me, I was listening."

The cotton pad and cleansing cream are replaced on the desk. He has her attention.  
She turns, and for a moment he can clearly read surprise on her half-wiped face.  
"I thought you might have," she replies without expression. "I never wanted to find out, though."

Silence.

The lump in his throat has grown to the size of a Satsuma. He doesn't know where to go from here.  
"Do you really think I don't have feelings?"  
"I don't know. If you do I've never seen them. Not real ones."  
"You mean you don't know if I ever loved you. Like a normal son."  
"Yes."  
"I did," he says. "And then you –"

He dashes moisture from his face, fighting the lump, fighting the noises threatening to spill over into his words. No good. They take over anyway, twisting his voice to awful pitches and gusts. "You _stopped being _– you just – you – you – you – _fuck_."

Abruptly he is supporting himself against the doorframe because his legs won't hold him. A monster is trying to claw its way out of his mouth from where it's been living, down, deep down in his torso. He keeps forcing air out of himself, shrivelling his lungs in the effort to help it to escape. But it can't. It's a part of him. Every new breath he is made to take in only feeds it, feeds the monster and its desire to escape, until he feels as though it's cracking his ribs to tear its way out through his skin. He is aware of her, unmoving, looking on and not stirring a finger.

"You don't know," he gasps. "You don't _know_ how _fucked_ – how _fucking scared _I am _every day of my life _because of _you_."

She accepts this without comment. She still hasn't moved.  
Even the prostitute had the decency to _touch_ him.

"_Why won't you hold me_?" he pleads, sliding gradually down, down, until he crouches and holds himself instead, like a jigsaw, afraid that at any moment he will simply drop away and scatter into limbs and quarters.  
"I can't," her voice floats, descending like a feather. "It wouldn't mean anything."

An eerie, guttural cry comes from somewhere unfathomable, deep and resonant and horrifying. She shifts in her chair.  
"No, it wouldn't mean anything to _you_," he spits, forcing himself onto his feet again. She's taken everything else, but she won't lay a finger on his dignity. He has more intelligence in one eyeball than she has in her entire body and he will _not _allow her to be the winner in this. He doesn't deserve it.

His breathing is still laboured, but the rage seals over all the cracks, just until this is over.

"What are you feeling right now?" he demands, failing to restrain himself from shouting. "What are you thinking?!"  
"What, about the girl?"  
"You know fucking well _what_! About _everything_. About my _entire life_,as far back as I can remember. About her last of all!"

He seriously and honestly thinks that he may hit her.  
And after that, he can't see anything.

She makes eye contact with him and for once he doesn't resist. He braces himself against the awful blazing impact of her unflinching gaze, and glares right back. Their wills clash in the air, visceral and primitive. Her poker face is seamless, her façade unfaltering. Perhaps because it isn't a façade at all.

"I don't feel anything," she states. "I can't feel anything. If you'd asked me ten years ago maybe you'd have an answer you'd be satisfied with. Don't think that I've loved myself since that night, Jonathan. I wasn't strong enough to help you, and I wasn't good enough to keep George."  
"You've fucked me over forever, I hope you know that."  
"I know. I fuck everyone over, apparently. Everyone I touch." She finally averts her eyes, and turns to look at her reflection.

He looks at her, looking at herself, in that glass.  
He's never seen anything so full of emptiness as the way those two women regard one another.

"To be honest," she tells the mirror, "I'm glad about the girl. I am. I'm glad that you're finally acting like a human being."

There is a pause so heavy that it seems every article of furniture is holding its breath.  
He clears his throat, no longer leaning. Only drifting in space. Cut from the umbilical. Utterly alone, dizzyingly, unfeelingly alone.

"When I graduate," he ventures quietly, "I think that – I won't be coming back."

She nods, never taking her eyes off herself. The cotton pad and cream are back in her hands. She wipes her face.

"Yes," she says. "I think that would be the best thing."


	13. Necessary Evil

'**The Woodpile' by Frightened Rabbit.**

_Bereft of all social charms, I'm struck dumb by the hand of fear  
I've fallen into the corner's arms same way that I've done for years  
Come find me now, we'll hide out , we'll speak in our secret tongues  
Will you come back to my corner? Spent too long alone tonight._

* * *

Necessary Evil.

"Todd."

He strains with anguish. The weight crushes against him as he stands in that doorway, for the first time completely and irreversibly alone, abandoned, fractured. His mother just admitted that she never wants to see him again. The one person who has never outwardly rejected him has cut herself loose from his life, finally, forever.

Something in him wonders if he still exists.  
Can a person be a person if they have nobody left? Nobody to measure themselves by, nobody to talk to.  
Nobody at all. Not even his own mother.

"Todd."

He is whimpering on his bed, retreated to his room. It's his one chance to cry openly, in a place where there are no veils and no pretences, where everything lies raw and aching, like an animal skinned alive. It's his one chance to howl and scream his last night away in the peace of simple, brutal Truth. But he doesn't. He just whimpers into his pillow and hopes that she doesn't hear, because if she does – well, it would be giving her the last victory.

It would be a lesser treachery if she'd stuck a knife through his chest and left him to choke on his blood. Her blood.  
To empty himself of all this blood that ties them together, and make it final. The break that will never be repaired.

He sees nothing now but his knowledge, his future as a great thinker, his surrender to the power of the mind.  
That's all that's left. The incident with the prostitute seems a distant illusion now.  
What's the good in women? What's the good in any woman?  
They make life a hollow torture.

"Todd!"  
"Mm?"

Somebody has been calling a strange name. Perhaps they are out on the street. Drunk. There are a lot of drunk people out on the street around here, in this dingy corner of their claustrophobic town. Gotham seems a beacon of hope, almost blinding to his sore tear-drowned eyes.

_Get up_, it says in quiet, urgent tones as he buries his face into his duvet. _Get up and discard everything. Discard the old life. Discard feeling which will only delay you. You are no longer the weakling Jonathan. You will rid yourself of pain. You will become what you are meant to be._

The light stings. He can really feel it through his eyelids. It is golden and warm, just like the sun.

"Todd, wake up."

Abruptly, Crane was himself again. He registered the pressure of a hand on his shoulder, the proximity of a body perched close to his. He flinched, unconsciously, at the strange sensation of contact, as though the fingers might turn to claws at any moment. His eyes snapped open simultaneously.

The glossy curls were pinned in a halo about her head, and the morning light turned them to a glowing crown, Hēméra reborn, peering down at him from the white billowing cloud of her shirt. Her forehead was lined with concern beneath the full fringe, brows drawing together over grey eyes that caught him with a shock before he could glance away to her open lips. They moved again as he swallowed down the dream that still threatened to undermine him.

"Are you alright?"  
"Yes. Fine."  
"You were sobbing."  
"Sorry."  
"What were you dreaming about?"

He lay recumbent, vulnerable, beneath her. His right arm drooped over the side of the couch. He drew it in, placing his hand against his chest between them, his gaze torn between the instant fear and desire to meet her eyes.

For a second he could have been any person, any normal person, and told her everything.  
She would touch him then. If he told her she would put her arms around him.  
Once again, he wondered intensely what that would feel like.  
The breath left his lungs in an ambivalent sigh.

"I dreamt that the Falcones caught me," he lied with expertise.

Feeling the pressure of her hand leaving her shoulder he began to relax – then winced, as fingers brushed his hair back from his forehead lightly as a sparrow's wing. The touch was so fragile, so intimate, he thought he would scream.

"They won't find you," Alice murmured, "promise."

He suppressed the immediate impulse to spit in her face. The bile rose in his throat; her affection disorientated him, left him freefalling and uncertain, evoked such hatred and such a deep and inhibited yearning, bound and buried somewhere beneath, disturbing the surface as it stirred like a live man still kicking in his coffin.

"Are you hungry?" she asked, "I went out earlier and got you some fresh clothes. I tried to get all medium skinny fits. There's a selection, so – hopefully you'll like something. I can go again later. It's just, places will be opening for business again and I'd rather not pay when I can just take, you know?"

"Thank you," Crane cut in quickly, and began to sit up in indication that she should move away.

For a moment her reflexes seemed to fail her, and he was getting closer and closer and she wasn't going anywhere. He felt the warm caress of her breath on his face, and found his own lungs quivering. The petal lips filled his vision, drawing his gaze as Amy Lee's rosy mouth and rosy cheeks once had. The impression, the lost familiarity choked him, and he wanted to strangle her till the blossom pink turned blue.

Then she was gone, with a taunting call of, "Hot or cold breakfast?"

The thought of everyday routine brought him back to himself, to his situation, to his losses. Once again he was a man without a purpose, without a goal, saturated with fear. Nothing to occupy himself but the singular thought of evading Gordon and his forces – and the small consolation of this woman. This Alice. And her secretive, intriguing mind.

For the moment, he realised, she was all he really had.

* * *

Sorry about the shortness, but I'd rather give you a short chapter than nothing at all! Things will be happening soon, I promise. Big things. In the meantime show me some love and leave a review, just a little one, just to keep me going! Thank you muchly!


	14. Nothing Out There

'**It's Only Fear' by Alexi Murdoch.**

_Pretty, pretty on the fence, in your pretty moment of innocence,  
You do not see that I see inside, the quiet heart you're trying to hide  
Don't hold your head too high, don't be afraid to cry  
Because you know my dear, it's only fear, it's only fear  
Keeps you locked in here._

* * *

Nothing Out There.

"So," she leaned over to put the plate in front of him. "You never told me about your home."

Sausages, rashers, scrambled egg, toast. He suppressed a small twinge in his stomach at the sight of all that food, prepared just for him. Cooked perfectly with care, with an effort to impress. He made a show of picking up his knife and fork as Alice sat opposite and sloshed milk over her honey nut cornflakes. Then, for some seconds, he chewed carefully, pretending to relish – actually relishing – the tastes and textures. His diet was not normally so luxurious. Not even in the penthouse. Certainly not as an inmate at Blackgate or Arkham, and not even before that, during his days as professor and then doctor. Food was a necessity for the body, and he'd never really cared for his physical self.

Now he could feel every nerve end tingling because her eyes were on him, searching, curious, and the breakfast was delicious because she had made it. This woman who had no idea who he was, and accepted him for it. This girl who hadn't yet ridiculed or ignored or injured him. Only frightened and intrigued him to a point where he felt altered, not himself.

What man could honestly feel 'like himself' after three thousand days in a cell without sunlight, deprived of the greatness due to him? This was the excuse he pushed like a barricade against his own treacherous thoughts.

"Which home? What about it?" he asked finally, after he'd swallowed.  
"Your apartment here. The bland one."  
"Yes?"  
"Is there anyone else there?"  
He coloured abruptly despite himself. "No, not really."  
"No wife, no children?"  
He laughed aloud. "No."  
"No girlfriend?"  
"Not for a while." He paused to inject some authenticity into his words. "There were a few. Over the years."  
"No-one stayed?"  
"Nobody really clicked."

A pause. She crunched and pondered. A small, stupid smile threatened the corner of his mouth.  
He wanted to slap it from his own face.

"Friends?"  
"A couple of close friends, yes. Nobody I'd like to get into trouble because of me."

She understood, and looked down. If she was caught hiding him – who she thought he was – there would certainly be trouble. But of course he couldn't leave now for her sake. He was her protector in case any of the big bad guys accidentally showed up in her flat. The irony of it almost murdered him.

"And yourself?" he steered away from his own pretended history. "I don't suppose you've had many husbands."

She laughed a pretty little laugh that ended with a small sad smile.  
"No husbands."  
"Boyfriends then, obviously."

It was so fascinating to watch her taking compliments.

"A few of those," she admitted.  
"Let me guess," he spoke to his toast, "every time your heart gets broken you fly off to another city."  
The sharp glance that she gave him was also an amused one.  
"Every time it's in danger, actually. It's never been broken."  
"There are men all over the world still wondering where you got to?"  
"I don't like goodbyes."  
"Did your family say goodbye?"

Now the look was anything but amused.

"No, they didn't get a chance."  
"Sorry."  
"No, it's okay. Feel free to pry. Just don't expect many answers."

She was making the game so enjoyable! He could have clapped his hands for delight.  
But now it was her turn. She'd finished her bowl and was whirling the spoon around it aimlessly, frowning.

"I don't understand. You move to Gotham for Business, become a bookkeeping clerk, move into a bland old flat and get a couple of girlfriends – but you have Psychology as a hobby. Who has Psychology as a hobby?"  
"Bookkeeping clerks."  
"You could have earned more as a doctor." She levelled her gaze at him. "You're either stupid or boring, or both."  
"Thank you."  
"But you're not."  
"How do you know?"

She didn't. She was just hoping he wasn't. Or second guessing.

"You're not, are you?" she murmured. "I think there's more."  
"Is there?"  
"I think you're afraid. To move forwards."

She shifted and crossed her legs. Her toes brushed him under the table for an instant.  
Damn the girl, she was cutting right to the core of him through his alter ego of all things. At least his reactions would be more genuine because of it. He preferred playing the game the other way around, when she was the one under scrutiny – but if he wanted any help from her he was going to have to give as much as he took.

"I didn't have the greatest encouragement."  
"From your parents?"

He nodded mutely. His eyes were firmly fixed on the plate he was polishing off, but he sensed the sympathy welling up in her like an untasted freshwater spring, rich and refreshing. And new. Something he'd been long deprived of.

"Why don't you tell me about them?"  
He gave her a cheerless smile and shook his head. If she was going to play hard to get she could hardly expect him to start sobbing all over her about his 'haunted past' and his 'loveless childhood'. No. She was going to beg him for his secrets.

Another brush against his leg, this time hardly an accident.  
"If you could do anything," she urged, "anything at all, forgetting fear, what would you do?"

An image of Gotham on its knees flashed across his vision. Gotham bowing to him. Only him.  
And – a woman at his side. _On _his side. In cahoots, as it were. Still bowing, still submissive. But _his_, willingly, through and through. After he'd had his fun, after he'd scoured the last inches of her mind and toyed with her body, she would be his slave and his supporter and his comfort in the nights, a shield from everything haunting and undermining. His first friend.

But who was he without Ra's al Ghul, without Bane, without the League of Shadows?

"At the moment," he said eventually, meeting her gaze, "this is just fine."  
And he meant it.

"I have to do my rounds," her voice lingered at the table as she danced away to wash up their things. "Information doesn't gather itself. I have lots to catch up on for the old book. You won't be too bored, will you?"  
"I should be fine."  
Alice nodded to the stack of novels on the windowsill. "Feel free to read those."  
"And what's to stop me from reading yours?" he teased, gesturing to the hundreds of pages pinned to the walls.

"It's a first draft!" she cried. "Don't read it. And if you do remember first drafts are always awful."  
She was dragging the chair away from the door, flinging on a coat.  
"Alice," he stood up abruptly and crossed to the kitchenette.  
"Yeah?"

Her whole frame stiffened as she watched him pick up the gun from the counter and advance towards her. She didn't want to look suspicious but it showed plain as day on her face. There was a little way to go yet before she'd trust him. And rightly so. Only as he placed the weapon in her palm and stepped away did she breathe again.

"Better take that with you," he mumbled, trying not to get caught up in her bright grey stare.  
She beamed suddenly.  
"Hold down the fort for me, there's a doll."  
"Don't worry, I'll protect your novel with my last breath. It's worth much more than me."

Another backward glance, another titillating smirk, and she was off skittering down the hallway.

He sat down again, the immediate scent of her fading from the room, and pulled at his hair uncomfortably. Then he set off on the long journey of handwriting around her flat, approximately a thousand sheaves long, starting with a rather gripping prelude right next to the front door, and cutting off mysteriously and abruptly halfway through somewhere in the recesses of her bedroom.

* * *

Great things are coming up, if only I can find the enthusiasm to write them! Is anyone actually bothered about this? Should I just stop now?  
Leave me a review if you're eager to see what happens!


	15. On Thin Ice

'**It Was Fear of Myself That Made Me Odd' by Alexisonfire.**

_I will play until the sky is black, breathe in all the air  
Exhale and choke the land with carbon, burn it all  
Looking down from where I stand, I can see the curvature of the Earth  
And I want to make it flat._

* * *

On Thin Ice.

He had made it all the way from the front door to the fridge, before his name was finally mentioned.

There it sat, quite innocent-looking in her neat blue handwriting. His identity. His _old _identity. Scarecrow.

He tripped over words in his eagerness to consume them. What little cameo had she set up for him? Had she got his character right?

The focus was upon the protagonist, as always – a certain _Robert Bucket _who had managed to get himself caught up in the affairs of Bane and his cohorts, and was about to pay the price with exile, apparently. But Alice had still been generous enough to grace her imagined Scarecrow with 'greasy tangles of hair, long neglected in the gloom of his Blackgate cell', and most interestingly, 'a crippling sneer which constantly compelled him to adjust and readjust his glasses upon his wrinkled nose'.

At this Crane automatically put up a hand to his own face, and found it bare.

He had left his glasses somewhere beneath that mountain of desks, squashed and flustered, hiding from Gordon.

It was alright. He had only ever worn them for show. People are generally more intimidated by an intelligent-looking man in glasses than a skinny, wimpy-looking guy without them.

Given his current situation, however, he needed to appear as weedy as possible.

He polished off the rest of the unfinished novel with relish, and found himself standing quite suddenly and unconsciously in the middle of Alice's room. Her private room. He'd crossed the threshold whilst absorbed in the breadcrumb trail of papers.

Now a delicate, subtle flush made its way from his throat to the centres of his concave cheeks. It was one thing to cross-examine the girl's mind, to watch her shift uneasily under his gaze while several years of rigorous education let him translate her body language and the double meanings in all her words. It was entirely another thing to be in her space, her own personal space, with her most treasured possessions scattered about – the clothes she slept in lying across the bedspread – a cream-coloured bear with a bow tie, faded with use, regarding him lazily from a pillow.

This was her world, and it was very close, and it was very, very personal. He didn't know whether to be ashamed of his discomfort.

_Thud. Thud, thud, thud._

He whipped about with ears pricked like a fox. It had come from just down the hallway.  
The sound of doors being kicked in.

_Goddamn her_. She had made him too comfortable. He should have guessed, should have known that Gordon would be barely a step behind.

Now the cops were on his doorstep, breaking into five flats at a time, undoubtedly armed, in their droves. And where in hell did he have to hide?

He recalled his original plan to stick to the ground floor, in order to escape through a window, and laughed viciously at himself. What kind of idiot detective would neglect to plant more men around the building's perimeter for that exact reason? He hadn't a chance. He'd never had a chance. He was going to Blackgate, and in all likelihood even further, to the chair.

A pang of real death-fear overcame him, stronger than that abstract terror induced by the bomb.  
At least the explosion would have been quick. Incidental. Merciful.

Alice's slim wardrobe presented itself to him as a last resort, beckoning from the corner of the room.

* * *

Once again he was cramped in the blackness. Once again he wheezed as quietly as he could, waiting for the inevitable.

Had his mother read stories to him as a boy, he would perhaps have prayed for Narnia to really exist, just for one subconscious instant, on the floor of that rickety cupboard. Then again, had his mother read stories to him as a boy he would have been an utterly different person, probably in much less danger of being arrested.

His heart may as well have been drumming on the door of the wardrobe, it was so thunderous. He fancied he could almost see his blood pounding and swimming before his eyes. A trick of the dark.

His fists were clenched around folds of Alice's clothing, like a child reaching upwards to grasp a parent's sleeves. He gripped them so hard that he began to breathe her scent, squeezed out of the fabric by his clammy hands.

_Thud_, went Alice's door, easy as you like. Crane had forgotten to put the chair in front of it.  
Good. At least they wouldn't immediately notice that there was somebody inside the house who would have put it there.

The padding of several feet, all trained to tread lightly, filled the small space next door. Guns creaked in hands. Protective clothing hissed and crinkled softly.

The door to Alice's bedroom was flung open.

"Hey!"  
There was a collective noise of abrupt halting. Shoes shuffled to turn bodies around.  
"Hey! That's my apartment!"

It was her. Oh god, it was her. He tried desperately to inhale and exhale calmly, silently.

"What are you all doing in here?" her indignation rebounded off walls and windows with her stomping steps. "I live here! I mean I _actually _live here, I'm not just some squatter! I've been here seven months! How dare you!"

"Excuse me!" came another voice from the hallway, increasing in volume as its owner marched into the apartment.

Crane knew that voice. He had sent it to an icy death, never expecting its return. Now it trailed against him like a gruesome monstrous thing, a ghost's revenge. It was empowered now, and Crane stripped of all authority. He shuddered.

"Excuse me, Miss, I don't think you understand –"  
"I understand my rights! And I don't think they include an invasion of my privacy."  
"We have more than enough reason, let me assure you."  
"And what reason would that be?"

The true precariousness of Crane's situation suddenly fell upon him. Did Gordon have a photograph, for the purpose of questioning citizens? Was he showing it to Alice this instant, about to utter the name of Scarecrow in connection with that face, the face of Jonathan Todd?

Surely the ordinary people of Gotham needed no reminders. Surely his appearance was burnt into every memory, cradled in the pale fabric of a straight-jacket.

There was enough of a pause that he was genuinely convinced that he was doomed. Then came Gordon's voice – hesitating – hedging.

"A dangerous individual is at large."  
"Which one? There are a few at the moment."  
"Please Miss, if you would cooperate –"  
"Sorry."

"I notice your place has been broken into before."  
"Yeah, I got rid of him okay. I'm not completely helpless."  
"Could you give me a description?"  
"Short brown hair, stocky build. Tall. Crooked nose. I was really concentrating on my gun, and whether to fire it."

"Is that the cause of the unusual hole in your flooring?"  
"I had to make him understand I wasn't joking."

"And did he leave?"  
"Immediately."  
"Why do you think he was there?"  
"Looking for a place to hide out, I guess. Lots of criminals are. How are you doing with that?"

"We're working on it, don't you worry. We've got a good number back in their cells."  
"But not this very dangerous individual."

Crane knew just from her tone that her internal cogs were working fiercely. She'd talked at him like that, just before coming out with surprisingly perceptive questions.

"How high up are they, exactly? Probably top of your wanted list unless you've caught them already."  
"Now look," Gordon retorted, "this is strictly classified information."  
"Meaning that it's bad and you don't want to cause a panic."

"Please. Just tell me if anyone else has been through here, anybody particularly desperate to avoid us."  
"No, there hasn't been anyone else yet," she said without so much as a pause. "If you'll excuse me, I need to sweep my floor of all these footprints."

Crane sensed Gordon taking her by the arm, sensed the sudden tension and intensity pervading the air.

"If you see anything suspicious – anybody even vaguely criminal – let us know immediately. He's not a stable character. He's capable of atrocities you couldn't begin to imagine."  
"_He_?" she whipped back. "A dangerous _man_?"

"Don't tell anybody. We weren't here. This is for the safety of the people, you understand."  
"I don't have anybody to tell. I wasn't intending on staying here for quite as long as I have."  
"Well, the sooner we catch these offenders the sooner you can be on your way, Miss."  
"Thank you. By all means, show yourselves out."

Crane allowed himself to take real, gasping breaths as the sound of retreat heralded his safety.

He kept a firm hold of the clothing that dangled above him, concentrating upon the reduced rate of his heart as he waited for a signal that he could emerge. For a long while there was none. He assumed that she was still standing guard, watching them as they invaded more and more of the apartments further along.

The thudding of splintered doors began to grow distant.

In there it felt like an eternity. In fact it was just over half an hour.

But finally, abruptly, he detected an unusual noise along with the soft opening and closing of the front door.  
She was coming back from somewhere – what excursion had she possibly been on? – and she was coming with something on wheels.

"Todd!" came the low beckoning call. "I reckon you're alright now."

Stiff with terror and cramps, he half-fell out of the wardrobe and scrambled to his feet, still avoiding exposure through the small window of her bedroom. He crossed on quivering legs to the door, which was barely ajar, and coaxed it open.

Alice was standing in the middle of the room, grasping the handle of a shopping trolley. And in that trolley…

"I didn't know which branches you were most interested in, so I took them all," she gestured to the hundred books neatly stacked, their spines glittering with golden letters and names that were all so familiar to him. "It's all Gotham library had to offer in the way of Psychology. Only to borrow, you understand. For when I have to go out."

This would later become crystallised in Crane's memory as one of the very rare moments when he had almost laughed for pure delight. He suppressed the desire immediately, but the emotion swelled up in him nonetheless. Real emotion.

She had gone to efforts for him, yet again.

She'd just rescued him from Gordon's clutches at risk of becoming an accomplice in crime.

But somehow this – this absurd and theatrical gesture of well meaning – was so much more significant.

She wore a smile that said she knew it fully. She knew what she was doing, she knew the ties that she was slowly strengthening between them. She wasn't afraid of looking stupid if it meant that he felt comfortable.

And as much as the intimacy immediately repelled him, there was a sense of nostalgia in the way that he carefully extracted and analysed those feelings of companionship. Some small part of him was even sorry to have to dismiss the whole thing as unworthy, beneath him.

Some small – very small – part was really quite pleased at the prospect of having to keep up appearances as Todd, of having to look shocked and grateful and accepting.

It was refreshing, being forced to act like an awfully ordinary human being capable of empathy, capable of emotion.  
It almost made him feel like it was possible.


	16. A Watchful Guardian

A huge shout out to all of my wonderful readers who are following, favouriting and reviewing! I couldn't carry on without you. I hope you enjoy this!

* * *

'**Fear And Loathing' by Marina and the Diamonds.**

_I've lived a lot of different lives__**, **__been different people many times__**  
**__I live my life in bitterness__and fill my heart with emptiness__**  
**__And now I see it for the first time, there is no crime in being kind  
Not everyone is out to screw you over  
Maybe, oh just maybe, they just wanna get to know ya._

* * *

A Watchful Guardian.

It was odd, an odd thought, that struck him as he bent over the trolley full of books, like a father bending over a pram.

The thought was this: he had been imprisoned for almost a decade. The second he had gotten out, he had been employed as an authority figure within Bane's impressive shadow. He hadn't so much as spared a thought for his old practices and his long-neglected studies. He was once again in a position of advantage, and it was all that mattered. Now, without a plan, without a clue as to what was to become of him outside of this flat, the sight of textbooks was a sharp shock to his system purely because it brought him such relief. It was as though he had been falling, in denial, at an increasing velocity into some black abyss with an uncertain end – and now here was a net to catch him, to remind him that he had been falling and not floating in the first place. There was something out there, some light cast by the great minds of his time, something worth living for besides the petty games he intended to play with this girl.

And despite the fact that she was only a temporary distraction, the fact that _she_ had cast him this net made her significant somehow, as though she had sown herself to it in the process. She was as much of a novelty as the eight years of psychological advances that he had to catch up on, hidden within those hardcovers.

He lifted _Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind _from the top of a pile and stole a glance inside. Published in 2012. He would first have the delicious task of filing these in chronological order before he picked up where he'd left off, back in the distant realms of early 2004. He glanced up, abruptly aware that she was scrutinising him, amused by his enthusiasm.

"I see you haven't changed yet." She meant his clothing. No, it was true. He had been too wrapped up in her unfinished novel.  
How unlike him. Usually he couldn't bear to waste more than five minutes between waking and showering. The thought of human grime, of odours and lingering bacteria… he suppressed a slight tremor of disgust. He really wasn't 'himself' at the moment. Hopefully the copious amounts of disciplined study he was about to undertake would sort all of that out.

"I was very interested in your book," he parried with his best attempt at a winning smile, whatever 'winning' was supposed to look like.  
"I told you it would be awful."  
"It wasn't," he insisted bluntly. "I was captivated."  
"Is that so?"  
"I ended up in your room with no idea how I got there."

Had he meant to say that to make her blush? Somehow it had produced the opposite effect: he was shifting his feet with a burning face while she studied him, that already familiar glint of humorous pleasure evident in her flashing grey eyes.

"Did you like my room?"  
"It was full of – interesting things."  
"Did you get a good look?"  
"Not exactly. Even if they hadn't burst in, I wouldn't have."

Her glance told him she didn't have any use for his coyness. At any rate, she wasn't used to it. Being a stripper probably did that to you. Funny, how protective she was over her novel, and how flippant she was about things like sex… Just thinking the word turned his stomach in abnormal and uncomfortable directions.

"I dropped in on my boss while I was networking," she ejected as though taking opportunity of the topic. "He says to be back at work tomorrow. Apparently we've been sorely missed."  
He barked out a laughing cough.  
"Yeah," she agreed, "you'd have to be some kind of nut job to do it for free. Especially for these Gotham jerks. Absolute cavemen, all of them, and not one brain cell to rub together."  
"I'm glad you think so too."

And he was. Hearing such contempt from another person was a rare and refreshing thing.  
For a second he wondered whether, if he told her everything about his part in Gotham's disasters, she would laugh with him.

"Are you hungry?" she asked abruptly, throwing down her satchel and leaving him clinging to the trolley of precious cargo. "I definitely feel like a fish finger sandwich."  
The large breakfast she had cooked for him still sloshed about in his stomach. He winced at the thought of squeezing more food into his gangly frame.  
"I had a snack not long ago."  
"Cool. Do you mind if I eat and get straight to work? I've got a whole bunch of new testimonies I need to write up for Robert."

Robert? Ah – Robert Bucket.  
Crane discovered a small kernel of something – positive – at the pit of his stomach as he registered how close she was to the character she had carefully crafted. There he was, in that neat blue handwriting, surrounding the apartment like an ethereal presence. And yet to her, he was real.

Would Jonathan's life have been so miserable, if he'd discovered the power of stories?  
The only character he had ever crafted was Scarecrow. Still warm in his grave, still haunting him.  
He would never have talked about Scarecrow with Alice's kind of familiarity. Only with a quiet, malicious reverence.

"I don't mind, I don't mind at all," he whipped back eagerly, still clutching _Evolutionary Psychology_. "There's a lot of material here I haven't read. Believe me," he gave a genuine smirk, "you'll have a hard time prizing me away from it."  
"That's fine. I have a _lot _to do. It'll be nice, you know, just sitting and working together."  
"Yes," he said, unable to keep his curious, wondering tone concealed. "I suppose it will, won't it."

* * *

Crane was strongly reminded of his Chemistry classes with Amy.

It was a great compliment to Alice that every hour or so he would look up, just for a minute, and watch her as she worked. While he was spread on the couch reading and copying significant passages into one of her spare notebooks, she was hunched over the dining table with her sheaves and sheaves of lined paper and her fountain pen. Toes turned inwards just touching the floor, shoulders forward, she frowned with concentration as her eyes smote the pages stroke by stroke, following the motion of the ink. She seemed to look into another world, as if the leaves were a swirling portal or enchanted mirror. Thought crackled around her like a halo of invisible electricity, until she became radiant.

A very different woman from the one who posed slightly for the benefit of showing off her curves as she stood at the stove.  
It was captivating, in an entirely altered way.

Crane wondered if perhaps he looked the same, absorbed in his studies. But if he did, it went to waste. Alice didn't look up at him once: he would have felt it if she had. She was oblivious to all, except the one thing that wasn't real. The power of the mind over the senses. He felt outraged that it disappointed as well as impressed him.

It grew dark, and then black. He drew close to finishing _Psychopharmacology: Drugs, the Brain, and Behavior_, and somehow felt listless and bored. Probably because he was far more intelligent than Mister Meyer and Miss Quenzer, and really had no need of their help in an area that he had already made pioneering progress in.

… Probably.

She straightened, stood, and then bent backwards in one of the most flexible gestures he had seen since the high school cheerleaders showing off in corridors. He blinked and averted his eyes swiftly.  
"I always bend forwards when I write," she explained as she glanced at him, upside down, from the corner of her eye. "I love stretching after. I feel healthy again."  
At this, her hands circled away from her hips where she'd been supporting her back, and dived to the floor behind her. Like an acrobat she was suddenly in a handstand.  
"You still need to teach me your Kung Fu," she remarked with an inverted grin.

He watched the curve of her spine as she swooped backwards again, her little feet arcing down and setting her upright. Why on earth his body managed to find it appealing he didn't know. A vicarious enjoyment in the freedom of her muscles, in all likelihood. Yes, that would be it. He was lithe but he couldn't exactly do backflips.

"When would you like to start?" he replied in as polite a voice as he could muster.  
"Not tonight. Tonight I'm tired." She yawned to prove it as fact, and disappeared into her room for a moment before emerging with a large rectangular object. "I feel like a film."  
Shuffling away, she dragged a chair over to face the couch and set the rectangle on it. A laptop.  
"What would you say to _The Phantom of the Opera_?"

He said he hadn't the faintest idea. She said it was quite alright. Most guys were put off by the singing and Gerard Butler.  
He said he was happy to watch whatever she wanted. She flopped onto the couch and grinned.

Truth be told, he hadn't watched a movie since – since he didn't know when. Since high school, when teachers were lazy at the end of the year? Something as far back as that, probably. At first he sincerely regretted agreeing to such a trifling activity. The music was aimed at people with the capacity for high levels of emotion, for a start. It roared and it danced its way through the overture until he thought he would have to block his ears.

But then two things happened. Firstly, the story of the Phantom began to unravel, and aside from the infinite psychological complexities of such a miserable defected character, Crane was intrigued by the first stirrings of empathy that he had experienced in a long time. Try as he might to dismiss it as nonsense, he couldn't help drawing certain parallels. The only thing he took issue with was that this Gerard Butler – this handsome actor in a monster's mask – couldn't ever possibly know what it was to be really deformed. How could he know? How could he understand what it was to be rejected at every turn – by even his own mother – who would have happily hidden the atrocity from society – how could he comprehend the anguish turned to hatred of everyone and everything except for one core belief, one saving grace to cling to? For the Phantom this belief was in the beauty of music. For Crane, it was in the beauty of power. Power and fear.

The second thing – that pulled him clear out of this self-absorbed reverie – was Alice's disintegration into a semi-conscious state, closing the space between them inch by inch as her body relaxed and leaned and slipped sideways. It was a little like waiting for a shark attack. Would this be the moment? Would this next soft slide into the waiting embrace of sleep also land her in his arms? Would she jerk awake and apologise? Would she stay? Would he want her to stay?

His upper chest felt like a chamber slowly being sucked of all atmosphere, the pressure rising, his heart squeezed into palpitations. His breath became louder through his nose as he attempted to steady it. He kept glancing, back and forth, between the crown of her head falling in slow motion towards him, and the man on the screen who sang about pain he had never experienced.

The nervous jolt that he received when it finally, finally happened was almost too much for him.  
She felt it too, and began to stir, raising a hand to her eyes.

"Oh," she mumbled, "sorry."  
"It's fine," he said, and was worried that he meant it.  
There was a pause while she decided not to move away. He didn't dare look down at her, cheek rested on his shoulder as his hands clutched one another in his lap. He was paralysed. Powerless. Sick to the stomach.

"We're an odd pair, aren't we," she sighed in the safety of the gloom.  
He assented quietly.  
_What's most odd is that there's any kind of 'pair' at all_, he snorted internally, _when it's always been singular before.  
_"I'm not used to being a pair," came her voice at the same instant.  
"What?"  
"No, I know… It sounds odd, doesn't it. But it's true. Like I said about new cities."  
"You've been in a pair before," he insisted somewhat condescendingly. "You haven't always been alone."

She loosened even further against him, this time as though some heaviness had taken all of the vitality out of her limbs, instead of the dreamy power of fatigue. She didn't breathe for a while.

"No. I was in a pair once."  
"What kind of pair?" he enquired, trying not to visualise a man with a winning smile.  
"That's none of your business," she tried to tease. Instead she turned her face into his arm, and he could feel her compressing her eyelids tightly together.

"You know you're the first person I've been – pushed into – in all this time," she said eventually. "I was never stuck with anybody else."  
"Thank you."  
"No, I mean – I just mean that's why it feels like a pair. We have to trust each other, or whatever pairs do. Just so you know. It's not you. It's this situation."

He fixed his gaze on the unmasked face of the Phantom, as a tear slid down the actor's cheek.  
"I'd be offended, but I have to say the same about you."  
"Good."

She began to drop off again, sliding even further until she practically tumbled into his lap. Gingerly, he reached for a cushion and placed it as a definite barrier between her face and his thighs.

Her subconscious was reaching, clawing for a human touch. Her starved gregarious nature was beginning to cling to his companionship. Depending upon it, as someone would depend on sugar to put in their coffee, or hot water for a shower.

As the credits rolled on, something seemed to disturb her from within the confines of her own mind. She winced at the same time that a small strangled noise, barely a whimper, high pitched and keening, emerged from her throat. Then she turned onto her other side and pushed her nose into his front as one hand curled around a corner of his shirt.

Two minutes later, she slurred something that sounded suspiciously like 'Charlie'.

It took much more mental fortitude than physical strength to lift her dainty body, so small-seeming in sleep, and carry it through to her room. At the door he turned to glance reluctantly back. She lay comforted under a well-arranged duvet with the lazy-eyed, bow-tied bear tucked under her arm.

It took him a moment to realise that he had done that.

With a sudden scoff of pure scorn, he almost slammed the door shut, and stormed off to the bathroom to cleanse himself entirely of the night's events. Tomorrow, he hoped, he would wake up feeling more like Jonathan Crane again.

* * *

So tomorrow Alice goes back to work! Will Crane be content with sulking around her flat every evening? I'm not so sure...  
Ooh, is that a major plot turning point I can hear just around the corner? I think it might be!  
Leave me a review if you're eager for more, my lovelies! Goodnight!


	17. Imagine the Fire

'**Alleviate' by Moving Mountains.**

_Run from me, you can't wake up if you don't dream of anyone or anything  
You can't get up if you're not falling down, and I am finally feeling like I could die again  
And it wouldn't mean a thing in the end, it won't matter much if you just open your eyes  
Turn around, and look me in the eyes and swear to me  
You'll never be a dream to me._

* * *

Imagine the Fire.

He specifically asks for a single dorm.  
It's the Saturday before lectures begin. His suitcase is unpacked. His room is spotless.

However, upon seating himself at his desk with a few text books, Jonathan barely has room to manoeuvre between the chair and his bed. The walls seem to sink towards him. He is reminded of home. With a short sigh, he decisively abandons that cramped, bland, suffocating hole for the wonderful archaic-scented library. Its lobby shimmers with marble and old polished wood. He asks directions to the scientific sections, and begins to climb the endless flights of steps to a seeming Heaven. Like a buccaneer in a cave stuffed with treasures, he prepares to loot the shelves.

Much of the material on his first year syllabus is old news. He studied it all way back when, in those long hours after high school he spent avoiding his mother. The sensation of new freedom, of being able to explore areas that his college fellows are scarcely considering, is the most glorious he has ever felt. _This _is happiness. _This _is belonging. _This _is his element. Here he is a prince, and he works to inherit the throne.

Elizabeth Public Library had several books on Psychology, but not a fraction of the amount that spill out of the rows and rows in this monumental building. Jonathan doesn't know where to begin. He wanders with casual glee, perusing on a whim by the looks of the spines, by the intriguing names. He allows himself to choose only three, though. Just as a warm up before the semester starts. One, a set text on child development – the only aspect of the syllabus he hasn't already covered.

The second catches his eye from metres ahead. Its green spine beckons with bold white words.  
_The Psychology of Fear and Stress._

His hand quivers just slightly as it extracts it, weighs it in his hand. To take this book – to open it and to look inside and to take notes – it would be admitting something to himself. Something he's not entirely sure that he wants to admit.  
_That I've been afraid every day of my life since my memory begins.  
That I'm still afraid, and I don't even know what of._  
But he's moving on, and the text is still in his grip. This is happening. This is happening whether he wants it to or not.

The third book he chooses is the one that will change his life forever.  
Its title reads, _Drugs and Behavior: An Introduction to Behavioral Pharmacology_.

In high school they only covered the effects of alcohol and illegal drugs on the mind. He absorbed information on synapses and neurotransmitters and hormones, learned about the stages of intoxication, and repeated the material back at his mother when he got home and found her on her third bottle of white wine. At this point she would usually be in a state of either 'confusion' or 'stupor', and unable to appreciate his expertise on the subject.

Soon he was repeating material about the course of cocaine dependence, insisting that she was passing the dangerous milestone of 'regular use', and from there lay only 'dependence'. In her 'confused' condition – she'd been drinking as well – she threw various objects at him and told him to leave well alone.

For some reason he steered away from the study of drug use wherever possible after that.

But this occasion is different. On this occasion, he happens to be holding a book about childhood and a book about fear, whilst looking at a book about chemical cures for behaviour. Chemical cures for mood disorders and clinical disorders and much more.

Doctor Seaton said that there is no cure for mild autism.  
But is there – can there be? Is it possible that a cure for _fear_ exists?

* * *

The cure for fear does not exist.

Jonathan has scoured every nook and cranny, every inch of the topic of Psychopharmacology within the space of two weeks. He could write a paper on the subject that would leave most professors astounded, if he so wished. His head is swimming. It's a good thing he's so ahead in most aspects of his course because he would have had _so_ much catching up to do, after this panicked whirlwind project which has gripped him with the strength of the devil's own hand.

He quickly discovered 'benzodiazepine', a class of drug for tackling anxiety. But long-term use isn't recommended, apparently because of _concerns about adverse psychological and physical effects_… meaning that it only seems to do what it should, and is in fact doing something else entirely, that reveals itself with sinister slowness. Down that road lies serious mental illness for a foolish addict.

Then there were 'beta blockers', at first promising but ultimately a sham. They only reduce the symptoms of the fight-or-flight response. As much as he enjoys the thought of having a normal heart rate in any social situation, it will do nothing for his fear. Ridding himself of outward effects won't free him from the daily strain, the everlasting agony of sly nerves, subtle tensions, elusive phobias.

From Psychopharmacology he moves briefly onto intellectual possibilities. He ends up snorting over 'exposure therapy' which suggests leaving a patient trapped with their fear, gradually increasing contact, until they just 'get used to it'.

He's been trapped with other people – with his mother – for almost two decades, and no amount of exposure has desensitised him yet.

_Well_, he sneers as he slams the last text book shut in sheer frustration, _if they can't do it perhaps I can._

And so begins an obsession with the chemical manipulation of fear. An obsession which will carry him into realms that he had never dreamed existed – which will alter his very personality, his entire outlook, in its extremity. He will lose months' worth of sleep over this. He will toil and drudge and slave over the ideals he has set.

The cure to his life. The cure to himself.  
How very differently he will see things, not so very far into the future.

* * *

Emerging from those initial frantic two weeks is like surfacing from a nightmare. He has been attending classes but his notebook is empty. He realises with a jolt that nobody has attempted to humiliate him or injure him yet… he is still the incurable recluse, the geek in black polo necks, but there don't seem to be any new versions of Brandon to accompany him. No gangs of jocks leer at him in corridors. Girls who look like Amy let their golden hair cascade with less flourish, in more natural ways, wearing less makeup and more genuine smiles. In these two weeks he hasn't spoken to a soul, and not a soul has spoken to him. They respect the needs of a boy who prefers to be left well alone.

At first it's an immense relief, this absence of pressure, not having to look over his shoulder between lectures.  
The novelty doesn't last, though.

Acting like you're made of thin air will eventually lead people to believe that you are made of thin air. This is the useful information that Jonathan learns, first and foremost, from his degree. Keeping his head down, completing that child development textbook, making thorough notes in lectures and seminars and never, ever making a single sound. This is how he gets by. This is how he controls his fear of everybody and everything. This is how he survives in a strange city with nobody at all to lean on, not much in the way of money, and no clue as to his future.

But gradually, eventually, like crows swooping and prodding and pecking at a meal before digging in – the nagging feeling creeps up on him. The feeling that being ignored is worse than being rejected. The sensation of utter, desolate isolation that doesn't come with bullying or bad parenting, but in fact with a lack of them.

He has never known real loneliness. He has never thought himself a gregarious type.  
But even recluses need something. Even they need to feel that somebody, just one person, notices them.

This ache, this hollowness, this silent desperation converges on him, encroaches upon his every waking moment and seeps into his dreams. He cannot get away from the fact that he is invisible, that he may as well not exist.

He is terrified. Because if he may as well not exist then what is there beyond him? Should he live? Should he not?

One day, in Mr Harvey's seminar on Clinical Psychology, he feels that it has to end one way or another. He arrives early and seats himself at the furthest end of the large table which the entire class will occupy. No individual desks. Not that luxury in these small lessons. A shame. He's not certain what he's going to do – whether he's going to punch the nearest student directly in the face, or jump out of the window, or murder the professor with a marker pen. All he knows is that he's a kettle with his spout blocked up but he's boiling over, always boiling over, and something has got to give now.

Everybody has filed in and taken their places. Mr Harvey pauses at the head of the table with his notes.  
"So, last week we were looking at _abnormal behaviour_, defining it in opposition to normal behaviour, and we were – we were exploring social norms and how we assess them, weren't we?" he smiles placidly. "This week we're moving on to look at how we go about _approaches _to abnormal behaviour. Can anybody name a few approaches for me?"

General silence. Some students are genuinely racking their brains. Some stare off into space. The majority of the girls are watching Harvey's every move with eyes that all too romantically appreciate his twenty-eight years of age, his edgy smart style, and his flickering brown eyes under shapely brows, with a shapely nose and shapely lips to match.

"Nobody?" he grins awkwardly. "Are you sure?"

Jonathan knows all the answers. He knows the textbook to which Harvey is referring inside out and backwards.  
He tightens his grip on the chair until his knuckles glow with a pale vibrancy.  
Then, quite suddenly, his jaw moves without his permission.

"Medical, Behavioural, Psychodynamic, Cognitive, Humanistic."  
"Yes," says Harvey with a raised eyebrow, "that's right. Can you tell us a little about the Medical model?"  
"It depends on the theory that if the cause of mental illness is physical then the treatment should also be physical. It focuses on psychotropic drugs, electro-convulsive therapy and psychosurgery."  
"Yes."  
"Its main strength is that it concentrates on diagnosis in order to help find the appropriate treatment. By assuming that patients, though relatively unique, are similar in their symptoms, past experience can help in the treatment of current problems. Each illness has 'essential features' – symptoms that are the basis of the defining of the illness. Then there are 'associated features' – symptoms usually present with a particular mental illness. The 'diagnostic criteria' are the symptoms that are used to diagnose the illness, and 'differential diagnosis' helps to distinguish one illness from other similar ones."

Harvey glances at the textbook on his shelf that Jonathan is reciting almost word for word.

"… Yes."  
"But diagnosis has to have inter-judge reliability and test-retest reliability. Word _et al _found in 1952 that different interviewers extracted different answers from the same patients which swayed the results of diagnosis and caused inter-judge reliability to fail. It's only since 1973 that the World Health Organization saw improvements. In terms of test-retest, there was less than 50% stability in the diagnosis of anxiety states, paranoid sates, mania and personality disorders. In terms of validity there are also overlap problems where patients aren't placed in the appropriate sub-category and underlying illnesses are missed."

He pauses for breath, and realises that all eyes are on him.  
He also realises that he is no longer boiling over to the point of splintering. In fact, he's quite calm.  
He is calm because he knows that he is perfectly right. Every word is right. He is establishing himself as the prince that he is, heir to the throne of the mind, infinitely above them all. They all know that he's above them. Not one of them speaks against him. He basks silently in their awe, waiting for Harvey's reply.

"That was a truly astonishing answer, Mr Crane."  
"I have my own point to add," he replies with a coldness that is almost arrogance.  
"Which is?"  
"That the Medical model vastly overestimates itself."  
"Does it?"  
"Of course. It still has decades of fine-tuning before it gets anywhere close to a decent anti-psychotic without side effects. It can hardly claim the importance of clear diagnosis when its medicine is going to be inadequate, regardless."

_Dumbfounded _would be the perfect adjective to describe Harvey's expression at this time.

"And what would you suggest that the Medical model should do instead, Mr Crane?"  
Jonathan runs a hand through his hair with an aura of nonchalance that he has never displayed in his entire life before.  
"Like I said, it's going to take decades. For now all I would say is that they should admit to their limits more openly."

After class he is approached by five different girls who want to 'go for coffee some time'.

Little does he know that by the end of his degree, he will have sworn off women for life because they are, as he will one day put it, 'bloodsucking arsy bitches who don't want to fucking know you after their last exam is over'.


	18. We Are Tonight's Entertainment

'**Closer' by Kings of Leon.**

_Stranded in this spooky town  
Stoplights are swaying and the phone lines are down  
This floor is crackling cold, she took my heart, I think she took my soul  
With the moon I run far from the carnage of the fiery sun  
And it's coming closer._

* * *

We Are Tonight's Entertainment.

The smell and sound of sizzling bacon coaxed him back into consciousness. Reluctantly he raised his head, peering about him. That dream was one of the only in his cycle that he wouldn't count as a 'nightmare' – only a recollection.

What did that say about his life's history, really?

He already knew what would be coming next. He had lived through a thousand of them: his memories strung out before him like so many developing photographs, blurred in places, but altogether too accurate. The story of his miserable existence, repeated every so often for his _benefit_, a gift from his own subconscious in eternal acts of self-loathing. As if every effort to escape from his past was, in the end, all for nothing.

Yes, he woke up feeling more like Jonathan Crane alright.

"I don't remember getting into bed last night," Alice's voice pierced his solitary thoughts from across the room, where she was once again busying herself over the stove, perched on the counter and leaning back on her hands. Her head was cocked to one side like a curious, impervious bird's. The grey eyes gleamed at him with warm mischief.

"No," he said by way of reply.  
"Robbie was even tucked up with me."  
"The bear?"  
"Yeah, the bear."

He coughed as he drew himself upright. "Don't worry about it."  
"Well I'm making you breakfast again, so we're even." She coloured briefly. "Sorry if I was a little too – open – while I was dozing off. I get a bit emotional when I'm tired."  
"No, I understand that." He waited a whole breath before asking, "Who's Charlie?"

The bacon became a source of great interest for a moment.

"Don't know," she shrugged, "I don't remember mentioning any name."  
"You'd just lost consciousness."  
"So are you going to teach me how to defend myself today?"

He glanced at her, the contours of her body quivering with an inner life of emotion. Her eyes were glossy, more alive than they should be, like the first signs of fever. She had drawn her knees up with her feet planted on the counter, and no longer leaned back on her slender arms; she looked altogether too ready for self-defence.

A tremor of pure, inquisitive anticipation gathered at the base of his spine. Simultaneously he felt his jaw tightening, his muscles hardening at the thought of this rival, this _Charlie_, and the effect he seemed to have on the girl. _Crane's _girl.

Correction: Crane's _plaything_.

* * *

"We begin with our basic stance," he instructed quietly, watching her copying his position, "feet shoulder-width apart, knees bent. Now bring your right foot up and in – that's it – and place it forward and out, heel first. Not too far – keep the same distance between the feet, shoulder-width. You should feel like you're standing on opposite corners of a square. Hips level, shoulders level. Good. Now, at the same time you should be doing _this_…"

He demonstrated with his hands, fanning them out into 'wings' with thumbs tucked in, elbows bent close to his sides. She attempted – was slightly off – he corrected her manually, just as his own tutor had corrected him. Her black strap top and leggings showed off her every outline, disconcerting him, but the sky was going to fall before he showed it.

He shook her wrist lightly. "These must always be poised to knock their fists and feet out of the way, knock them off balance, so you can strike."

They were practising crane style Kung Fu, of course. His specialty. It revolved around avoidance and disorientation of an opponent to make way for powerful attacks; the only person it hadn't worked on so far was the Batman.

"From here you lift the left leg – kick– swipe with your left wing in case they've grabbed you."  
"Show me again?"

They moved onto attacks with the hands, practicing the 'crane's beak' and 'crane's head'. She struggled.

"_Peck_, twist, wing, _step_," she recited with fervour as her hand stabbed out, corkscrewed upwards and rotated to fan out in defence.  
"When your hand arcs it needs to face the ceiling," he informed her. "Thumb in, fingers together. And _keep it there_. If you let go of a guy's hand once you've knocked it away he'll just come right back."  
"I don't understand!" she muttered, "I'm corkscrewing thin air."

"Are you?"  
With lightning speed he darted about to confront her and sent a fist flying at her face. In a reflex that startled even him, up came her arm in a tight arc, catching his punch midway through the air and sending it to the side. A fraction of a second later her free hand struck out like a snake towards him.

Unflinching, he brought his own remaining arm up in the same corkscrew motion and swept her attack clean away. They stood with barely a foot between them, trapped in one another's blocks. She blinked up at him with thick black lashes, as though emerging from a trance. He blinked back as though just falling into one, realising that up close her grey irises had flecks of blue and brown in them. If he had stood there for hours, he couldn't have described every detail of their dark-ringed, intricately textured features.

"Not bad," he mumbled.  
"What now?" she challenged. "It's stalemate."  
Were her words double-edged?

"Now," he replied as he noted his racing pulse, his laboured breath, his taut muscles, "I would probably head-butt you. I have the advantage of height."

Slowly, very slowly, he bent his neck towards her. Those large eyes became even larger with the proximity; her lips were poised slightly apart in wonder. _Is this what it feels like to lean in for a kiss?_ For a moment it seemed that it easily could be. It seemed that, if he were brave enough, he could have closed a hand around the back of her neck and pulled her mouth to his with such rapidity that she wouldn't know what had hit her.

Instead, he pushed his forehead against her nose and left it there for just an instant before pulling away.

"Again," he instructed as he disengaged their arms and re-assumed the basic stance.

* * *

Alice yawned behind her hand and stretched at the table. Crane paused, lifting his nose from the textbook it had been buried in to watch her. Their practice had left them both exhausted, and they'd returned to more academic occupations; this was the fifth time she had yawned in the past hour.

"Jesus!" she cried, glancing at the old clock above the stove. "It's six. I have to nap."  
"Nap?"  
"I work nine till two, so yeah, I need to nap."  
"You've got lots of time," he remarked, eyebrows lifting despite himself. "How long does it take to get ready?"

_Don't think about the details, don't think about the details._

"I have makeup and hair to do – and an outfit to pick."  
He tried to make a noncommittal noise as he practically thrusted his burning face back into his book.

"Were you hiding in my wardrobe earlier?" she asked suddenly.  
"Yes."  
"Oh."

The pause said enough. He had been hiding out amongst her outfits, apparently, along with her ordinary things. His ears felt as though someone was holding lighted matches to them. No wonder the floor had been so uncomfortable – it must be stacked full of high heels.

"So you – you don't have a car?" he ventured.  
"No. Why?"

He felt a tug of genuine worry at the edges of his stomach. "Do you walk or catch the tube?"  
"A bit of both. It's not too far."  
"Have you ever been…?"  
"No. No. I'm careful. I have a Taser and everything," she grinned.  
"Not to mention a gun."  
"Well yeah, but I save that for psychopathic intruders."  
"So, me."

They giggled. Admittedly he was chuckling with irony, but it didn't mar the moment as much as he'd expected.  
Somebody was laughing _with _him rather than _at _him. How strange.

"Look, do you want me to come and fetch you at two?" he blurted out.

She glanced at him sharply. "You can't."  
"I can wear a hood. I won't be noticed in the dark."  
"It won't be dark on the tube. No. Don't you dare. You'd be in so much more danger than me."  
"I'm not comfortable with letting you travel on your own."

Alice fixed him with a glare that would have withered a lesser man.

"I don't strut around the streets in my _outfits_." She ignored his blush. "And it's not called _Sapphire_ for nothing. We don't get many dangerous guys round there."

_You've got a dangerous guy sitting right in front of you. And he's offering to be your fucking escort. Figure that._

"If you're sure," he emphasised quietly, pretending to turn his attention to the next paragraph of the book.  
"Thank you, though. It was sweet of you to offer."

_Roughly translated, I'm a nutcase for offering to risk getting murdered or jailed so you won't get raped.  
… Roughly translated, it's far too much to offer to someone you barely know._

He obviously needed to be careful about how he moderated his behaviour. She'd been so kind to him from the moment she took that duct tape off his wrists and ankles – it was easy to get caught up, to treat her like she was his own. Not that she wasn't. She was his to manipulate whether she liked it or not, whether she knew it or not. But no – for now it was best that he played it safe, played it cool. For now it was just nice to be somebody's friend.

For now there was no pressure, only choices based on his whims, his pleasures – and his pleasures currently lay in her companionship, her heart-shaped face and her large eyes and conspiring smile, the meals she cooked and the gifts she brought… the anticipation, the uncertainty of her feelings towards him, of _his _feelings towards _her_, exactly where everything might be going. He was enjoying the idea of letting things unravel organically, without force or definite outcome.

Why? Who cared why, and who cared what it was doing to him. He was content, he was free, he was entertained. For now.

"I really am going for a nap," she smiled as she danced past him, close enough that he could have lurched forwards and grabbed her.

He let her go, and tried to start reading again as he imagined her lying vulnerable and unconscious just next door.

* * *

At quarter past seven he sensed her moving about, scouring her wardrobe. He heard the clack of heels as she contemplated her get-up for the night. The subtle rustle of clothes falling to the floor and moulding to flesh made him blush fiercely.

Finally the old-fashioned key twisted in the lock and the door opened.

Dared he look? Dared he ignore her? It was too much for anyone to bear, let alone Jonathan Crane. His neck snapped up and his eyes found her of their own accord. At the same time that all the breath rushed from his lungs, his heart also skipped with relief that she was indeed wearing ordinary clothes, and his brain automatically blocked out all ideas about what she sported underneath. He was finally living up to his doctrine about the mind's power over the body.

Almost.

No, it wasn't the idea of the outfit that lurked against her curves, hidden by the jeans and hoodie. It was her face that had drawn the air from his chest so suddenly and involuntarily. It looked as if she'd spent hours on those striking smoky eyes, accentuating the bright grey irises and lending her an ominously seductive aura. Her lashes were longer and thicker than ever, her lips highlighted with a cherry gloss. Her hair was jet black, bobbed and sleek.

She looked like a dark dream, manifested straight from his deepest desires. For a split second he saw her for what she could be, as more than a slave, more than a toy… Batman had Catwoman. Who was to say that Scarecrow shouldn't have an accomplice fitted out in black leather too?

How delicious! What a notion!  
If only, _if only _she was the type that could be persuaded.  
At this his pulse faded, he dropped his gaze from her visage, and scowled at his book.  
The girl had taken a stranger in, protected him from the cops, fed him, clothed him, been his company and his confidante.

He'd never convince her to see the way he saw.

"I feel kinda nervous," she snickered, "first day back in six months, you know."  
"You'll be fine."

He said it a little too tersely, and she noticed.  
"What's up?"

He snapped the book shut, surprised at how gloomy he was. All because she was too morally upstanding to become his sidekick. What was he, twelve? And when had _feelings_ like this become a regular fucking occurrence?

"I'm just concerned," he replied breezily.  
"Don't! I told you I'm fine. I've always been fine with this."  
"Well, there's no Batman to save you now."  
"Yeah," she paused and looked genuinely disheartened for a moment. "They all said incredible things about him, my network. About how he came back. What it cost him. He was the best – the very best of Gotham, you know."

He nodded mutely, afraid that if he opened his mouth something akin to a wild cackle would erupt from it.  
_Yes, he was the best. And he's gone. There is absolutely nobody now to save you, Alice Adams._

If he could keep a grip on who he was, at any rate. He was slipping. He found himself in alien territory too often nowadays, unsure of these emotional situations, disconcerted by her charms. She made him forget the world outside, the reality, the millions of people who didn't view him in such a generous light. She gave him a dangerous kind of hope. The kind that must be crushed quickly. A hope of acceptance.

But it wouldn't last, this utopia, this segregation from the unforgiving masses. As soon as the city's quarantine was over she'd be gone, and he had little hope of following her unnoticed.

Not that he wanted to follow her. He would probably be tired of her by then. Besides, he belonged to Gotham.  
Didn't he?

Would it be better to start afresh, in a new town?

The impossibility of the situation suddenly struck him as he realised that the quarantine would most definitely not be over until he was caught. How was he supposed to start afresh if he couldn't even make it past the border? It sent a spasm through his body, reminding him that he was nothing more than a rodent trapped in a hole, being slowly smoked out, one way or another. The only thing that stopped him from instantly falling apart was the thought of Alice. The both of them. Here. For as long as they could put Gordon off the scent. And then – would she run wild around the city with him? Would she be willing to play cat and mouse, against the law, until the very end? Would she go down with him?

Crane looked up at her again, still wrapped in her reverie about the Batman.

She pitied him. Yes, she would protect him whatever the cost. As detestable as his other acquaintances had turned out to be over the years, he knew instinctively that she was the genuine article. A diamond in the rough. Easy to sway with emotion, once all the 'facts' had been set straight.

"Help yourself to food," she smiled as she crossed to the front door and let herself out. "Take care."

He didn't reply, sitting as though mesmerised.  
He was coming to the slow realisation that as much as he found her naivety useful – as much as he would like to sneer at the notion – he _admired _her for it. He _appreciated _it, and not only because it was helping him out of a tight spot.

What's more, he had just realised something of an altogether different nature that made his heart thud in his chest.

_Easy to sway with emotion, once all the 'facts' had been set straight.  
Easy to sway with emotion._

A morally upstanding girl would never become a partner in crime with Jonathan Crane. But it had been easy enough to convince her of his own sob story as Todd. Surely he could dream up a grand scheme to deceive her into a new set of beliefs... That the people needed new direction. That somebody had to take the law into their own hands. She'd be thrilled by that – she had a taste for the reckless and risqué. Perhaps she could help him to raise a mob – oust the authorities once again – give the two of them space to slip away from Gotham while the riots occupied everybody else's attention.

But for manipulation on that kind of scale he would need a lot more than her pity.  
She would have to trust him. Trust him with her life.  
She would have to look up to him. Admire him. Adore him.

Love – _love _him.

He gasped quietly in the serene seclusion of the room.  
Then he stood, dropped the book – paced – came back to sit down – got up again – paced – tugged his own hair ferociously.

Because there was just one very simple, gigantic problem, and it was this: that he wasn't Ra's al Ghul and he wasn't Bane.  
Fear hadn't clogged their senses and their judgement whenever they thought of disrupting the city, of devising its destruction, of standing alone. They were so strong in their solitude. The people had been utterly below them because they were gods, they couldn't have cared less what everybody _thought _about them.

But Crane was used to humiliation, and without the bulk of the League of Shadows behind him, even now, he felt as though one strong insult or word of rebellion would topple his authority as though he were made of straw. Just a Scarecrow.

How could he instil terror into the crowds, with Brandon's taunts still ringing in his ears?

He wasn't a god. He was a man, and arguably not even that.

The textbooks he had piled next to the couch suddenly sickened him, taunted him. What was it all for? What good was the study of the human mind if he couldn't even control his own fears and doubts, let alone influence the multitudes?

He paced a while longer. No good. He was a monster on a chain. The decorative walls were abruptly squeezing together, compressing like the walls of his skull. He needed air. He wanted out – of his own mind, of his own personality, of his own everything. He would gladly swap lives with Jonathan Todd. He would gladly take up a history of mind-numbing accountancy just to relieve himself of this pressure, the pressure of a most wanted criminal who really didn't have the guts to cause any of the trouble that Gordon was afraid of.

Gordon be fucked. Crane was going for a late night walk.

* * *

Thank you for your constant support guys, a big shout out to my favourite reviewers :) I hope you're enjoying how the story's progressing. There are a lot of clues in these earlier chapters as to how the next ones will turn out. Anyway, leave me a little comment and I'll try and update soon!


	19. Agent of Chaos

There's a teensy bit of suggestive/graphic material in this chapter, nothing explicit, just a bit playful! Just to pre warn you. It's delicious anyway so no worries.

* * *

'**Thank You For the Venom' by My Chemical Romance.**

_Sister, I'm not much a poet but a criminal, and you never had a chance  
So give me all your poison and give me all your pills  
Give me all your hopeless hearts and make me ill  
You're running after something that you'll never kill  
If this is what you want then fire at will._

* * *

Agent of Chaos.

The wet pavement shimmered like knives beneath his Converse.

Alice had been good enough to guess his shoe size as well as grabbing him a whole wardrobe's worth of new garb. Jeans, shirts, tees, hoodies, jumpers, trainers, boots, not to mention socks and boxers. The girl had gone full out, once again. At the present moment he hated her for it. Her kindness was a jest. It poked and prodded at his thirty-three years of slow and silent torment, rubbed his face in the fact of his existence, much as Sam had once rubbed his face in dirt.

This was one big game to her. The city's quarantine, her novel, his situation. It thrilled her, in an unhealthy way.  
Not that he was anybody to be lecturing her on _health_.

He scuffed his soles on purpose, like a petulant child. _So_ she was attractive. _So_ she had a provocative job. _So_ she had surprised and impressed him at every turn. _So_ she had shown him some _empathy_. He was still enraged – humiliated – confused – disoriented by her presence, felt as though he was losing his grip on what was important – no – he genuinely _didn't know _what was important any more. He had nothing but her. That was it. That was why he resented her. She was everything – his survival, his protector, his plaything, his subject, his entertainment, his friend.

_No_. No friends. She acted pally, he acted coy. That was that.

The cold air was like a kiss of life, bringing the energy back to his disused limbs, revitalising his wasted mind. He needed this. He needed to get away from her mysterious, mischievous charms, from her scent that was beginning to soak into his skin and mingle with his own. From the sound of her dressing in the next room, from her cooked meals, from her trusting glance. From her head drooping into his lap late at night. From her half-conscious call for _Charlie, Charlie_. Whoever he was.

To think that he'd been forming an – an _attachment_ – however false, however selfish.  
To think he'd been letting her in, letting her root around in his brain and affect him – have an e_ffect _upon him.

Again, her suggestion cropped up in a quiet corner of his mind.  
_"If you could do anything, anything at all, forgetting fear, what would you do?"  
_She had seen through him despite all his pretence.  
_"I think you're afraid. To move forwards."_

He stopped and took note of his surroundings. Ironic that she would have said that. Because it was true.  
He had walked all the way to the old warehouse.

This was the place where, after Ra's al Ghul's death and the utter failure of his plans, Crane had stashed the remains of the fear toxin to sell and scrape a living off. There must still be a box or two left over – naturally it hadn't been too popular with the mob. A sudden desire to break into the decrepit, half-abandoned building and steal one last look at his creations took hold of him. To gloat over the old days, when he worked for secret gods and broke the boundaries of science. To feel that still, after all these years, he was worth something.

He rolled one small cylinder of compressed gas in his palm, crouched low over the wooden crate which he had tucked away in a dark corner, secretly, so long ago. The container and its siblings looked like new. Young, fresh, ready. Not like him and his common clothing and his growth of silver-shot stubble.

Something close to nostalgia, a kind of sadness, also rolled back and forth within him.

If only there was a way to return to those glory days, when he practically ruled the city. What he would do to see the masses cowering before him again. What he would do to make them obey him. More than anything, he missed his authority. He missed the control it lent him over his own life, to have control over others. And who did he have influence over now? Just one strong-headed, unpredictable, disconcerting girl. And scarcely even her.

There must be something. Something that had been missing last time, in Ra's al Ghul's plan.  
For one thing, Batman had been around to stop them.

A small kernel of malicious hope, a spark of ambition, leapt up in Crane at this thought. The Batman _wasn't _around anymore, and never would be again. Unless an heir sprouted out of nowhere – unlikely – there was only Gordon to stand in his way if he seriously attempted to hold Gotham to ransom, or destroy it, or drive it insane.

But there were no more machines capable of converting liquid to gas. Besides which, that idea was old news and easily defended against now that it had been foiled once. He would need something more, something ingenious.

Did he even want to use fear gas again?

As a servant of the League he had been delighted at the thought of Gotham's mass panic and self-extermination. But that was Ra's. Always seeking the greater good. For Crane, _good _had nothing to do with it. He wanted power, servants, subjects. What kind of subjects would they be if they were all writhing in madness or busy killing each other? No, if he was ever to do things his way, his poisons wouldn't be wasted on _fixing society_. Only fixing his own life.

Distressed, he threw the cylinder back into the box, slammed the lid, and slipped back out into the city's cool night air.  
He walked, and walked, until he began to lose focus and his thoughts wandered. It was time to go home.  
_Home_. Yes, a home, with somebody else who would be arriving there soon. Somebody who thought they cared about him.

An hour ago he would have scoffed at the idea, but the distraught and fatigued Crane, hazed with sleep and vulnerable with self-doubt, welcomed it almost like an ordinary man. The pit of his stomach pulled with pleasure as he thought of the cosy couch and the neat, homely cleanliness of that flat, the walls brimming with colourful life, and the turn of Alice's key in her door… her teddy with the bow tie keeping watch over her bed. How she had looked, utterly childlike and defenceless as he'd carried her through and tucked her in. The soft curls of hair that pillowed her dozing head upon his lap.

It was all too warm and comfortable to resist, to correct himself, to remind himself of who he really was. He was, if only partly, a human being. He longed to be touched and spoken to. He longed to be loved like anyone.

In a rare moment of real regret, he cursed the whole world for making him what he was, for barring him forever from all these things that came so naturally to others. For forcing him to hate, to reject, to put those things beneath him. He wished just for an instant that he could admit openly to everything, to somebody, anybody. Everything. For them to see what he had been through, his reasons, his past, his endurance, and appreciate that he wasn't made of stone after all. Not entirely.

By the time he flopped down and kicked off his shoes it was ten to two. She would be home soon.

Despite his exhaustion he strove to stay awake. He wanted to see her, just once, before he gave himself over to his nightmares. Knowing that she was there as he drifted off made them somehow less awful as he woke from them, if only because it created the illusion that he wasn't alone in his anguish. He was lying to himself, in that case – he had always been and always would be alone – but anything, _anything_, to stave off some of the horror.

It was half an hour, maybe more. Then he heard the front door finally creak open.  
Perhaps she would say something. The sound of her voice was more welcome than it had ever been, now, in his state of shattered susceptibility. A kind word. A joke. Something to grasp, something to comfort him.

"Todd, you're awake?"  
"I am."  
"I hoped you would be."

He lifted his head a fraction more to see her properly. Her hair was still bobbed and black, the whites of her eyes glittering by the lamplight that shone through the shutters. A long coat swept around her knees, cloaking her in darkness. Her lips were poised, half-open. The sight of her shot right through him, seemed to vibrate in his chest, like the aftermath of a hefty punch. She was striking, shocking, a gorgeous creature of the night. Something emanated from her, like a malevolence, or furious intention.

"Alice?" he asked in a voice that trembled.

He watched with speechless enchantment as slowly, slowly, the coat dropped from her shoulders and curled down to the floor. From its folded heap he trailed his gaze back upwards, past the six-inch heels, past the garter of blossoming frills, to the stunning vision of her scant outfit. Red and black lace flirted back at him shamelessly. The choker necklace, adorned with a single crimson rose, stood out against her long, pale, tender throat and gave her the look of some Victorian erotica. As he raised his stare once more with effort to her face, the luminous grey eyes clawed into him, pinned him in place.

She came closer, step by slow step, as though walking on a tight rope, the heels resounding.

He choked out her name again as she stopped two feet from him. With a small titillating smirk she simply turned around in one smooth motion, and began, gradually, excruciatingly, to reach down to touch her toes.

"Todd, you awake?"

He jerked upright with a sharp intake of breath and snapped his head about.  
Alice was silhouetted in the corridor's faint light, wearing the same hoodie and jeans she had left in. A sleek black bob of hair was grasped in one hand – her natural curls bounced about her shoulders. The whites of her eyes still glimmered.

"Sorry," she said quickly as she realised she'd woken him. "How was your night?"  
"Um," he gasped, "uneventful."  
"Okay. Not surprising." A pause. "Were you having another nightmare?"  
"You could say that."  
"You okay?"

He clutched a cushion over himself as subtly as he could. "Yep. Fine. Just fine."  
"Do you want me to stay up with you for a bit?"  
"No. You go to bed."

_Bed. The last fucking thing I need on my mind right now._

"Cool. Well, I'll see you tomorrow."  
"Great. Tomorrow. Yeah."

As she disappeared into her room and the key turned audibly once again, he collapsed and allowed himself to breathe.

Well. That was… interesting.

* * *

SORRY about the late update! I've been manic recently. I hope you liked this chapter - as it has quite a bit of foreshadowing, which means things can only get more interesting, in lots of different ways! Please leave me a little review and I'll update again much sooner, pinky promise!


	20. Buyer Beware

'**Kitty Litter' by Placebo.**

_The way you're dancing makes me come alive, makes me shiver and perspire  
So move closer, I wanna feel your touch  
Love of mine, this fortress in our heart comes crashing down  
The way you're moving, hips from side to side, makes you all that I desire  
Bathsheba of my choosing and I'm so unsatisfied, you're all that I require  
I need a change of skin, I need a change._

* * *

Buyer Beware.

"What are those? You call those wings? What are your thumbs doing!"  
"Sorry. It's hard to control everything at once."  
"You dance for money."  
"That's different. Everything kind of moves together naturally then. Kung Fu is all awkward."  
"You'll get the hang of it. Now, again."

Crane watched Alice with scrutiny as she fanned her fingers and tucked in her thumbs, holding her arms bent. Then he sent a fist like an arrow towards her chest – perhaps a little too violently, perhaps with too much spite, too much pent up energy caused by the vivid flash of last night's dream. She stepped backwards on the correct foot as her arm came corkscrewing upwards and sent his punch way off to the side. She was about to retaliate with her free hand, but he straightened and shook his head.

"What's my arm doing all the way out there?" he snapped. "You only have to keep me away from your shoulder, just here, so if I carry on going I'll skim past you. Don't throw me miles off or I'll just come right back. See."

He demonstrated, and this time she deflected his punch just enough, trapping his arm with continued pressure. The sustained contact left a trail of shivers up his spine.

"Are you alright?" she asked abruptly.  
"Fine. Just a little edgy, you know. Feeling trapped."  
_Trapped in here with you, everything about you._

"So why did you choose Crane Kung Fu?" she smiled coyly.  
He never knew if she was pretending to be shy, though it was more than likely.  
"What do you mean?"  
"I would have chosen Tiger," she replied as she curled her fingers into claws.

No. She was always pretending. He could tell just from that comment. She wasn't to be underestimated. When she felt most bold she would affect nervousness, and when she was most fragile she would put on her war paint. But was she ever genuine? He got the feeling that she was – he just didn't know when. He had to check and double-check every note in her voice, every face she pulled, because her motives were so well hidden. Why was she asking him about his animal? Why did she overload him with kind acts but hold him away with her words? What did she really _want_ from him?

Sometimes he wanted to stop himself from trying to answer these questions. Her mystery was his hobby.  
He would regret the day when she became a solved puzzle, no longer of any interest.

"I chose Crane because of my stature," he said. But don't think that Cranes are the weak ones just because they're evasive."  
"No, you can really throw a punch."  
"Thank you. I was saying. There's a lot more to Cranes than people think."  
"Like what?"

He grinned despite himself at her curiosity. She was just like a child, really: bouncing back and forth between all kinds of lives, so young and energetic, never sinking under the weight of earthly concerns, doing exactly as she pleased. Always eager to learn and share and befriend. But in another moment gone, as soon as the whim took her.

What a dangerous, delightful way to live.  
He envied her freedom.

"Well, the Greeks said that Apollo disguised himself as a crane on visits to the mortal world."  
"Right."  
"In Japan they were referred to as 'Honourable Lord Crane'. Apparently their wings could convey souls to _higher levels of spiritual consciousness_. But they're also misunderstood, in India and Celtic mythology, mostly. The god Midhir was said to have three cranes as bodyguards – they could drain warriors of their courage."

"That would be handy," she grinned, and suddenly her right leg leapt towards him in a zealous roundhouse kick.

He reacted without so much as blinking, his hand like a viper as it grasped her ankle and twisted. She span, and he took her left hand, holding it up in a half nelson as she fell to her knees with her back to him. She winced, but for a moment he didn't ease his grip. He stood over her. Dominant. Certain.

"You're very good," she twirled out of the lock and stood up using his hand as support.  
Their fingers squeezed one another's wrists for a second before dropping away. Her grey eyes sparkled.

Abruptly she jabbed him in the shoulder. "But I bet you still can't catch me. You're it."  
And she leapt away out of his reach.

He stood dumbstruck for a second, finding himself quite unexpectedly engaged in his first ever game of tag.

She danced on the balls of her feet in the apartment's limited space. He regarded her seriously for a moment before making a tentative lunge and she flinched, a burst of giggles bubbling from her throat. It was contagious, and he caught himself smiling despite the fact that _playing _had long been far beneath him.

He feinted and then dived for her and she skittered away – he gave chase – she took off towards the other end of the room – he almost had her – she ducked and made a sharp U-turn – he almost tripped over trying to follow – she jumped right over the counter that separated the kitchenette and climbed to the top of the fridge, just like a cat. As he reached up she plummeted again, making a beeline for her bedroom door where she would certainly lock herself in.

"No you don't!" he heard himself crying, felt his muscles burning with sudden vivacity, and in the blink of an eye, he caught her upper arm and swung her around.

They flew through space together as he aimed perfectly – with a soft sound her back hit the couch, brunette curls flowing out across the cushions, and he landed on top of her, the pair of them consumed with laughter. His neck and wrists throbbed with the blood pulsing through him; his heart was frantic and fluttering like a cornered bat. But he was giggling. With embarrassment, with genuine glee, who could tell. It was all a muddle of emotion.

Her body was supple and alive underneath him, pressed firmly to his own.

He coughed as she smiled.

"That was fun," he said in astonishment.  
"You needed the exercise." She suddenly became serious. "It must be frustrating for you, being kept in here."  
"Yes." He paused. "To be honest, I'm used to it."

She chuckled again, not knowing how truthful he was being, not recognising the eight years of darkness and stillness imprinted onto his words. He propped himself up more securely, unwilling to retreat just yet. So many layers of tantalising possibility were hidden here, folded between their skin, aching to tear aside the barriers of material. There was a mischievous glint of something forming in her eyes – his whole body hummed, tensed, lost itself in the moments of pure instinct. It was indescribable. He felt magnetised, charged, heavier and lighter, warmer and yet saturated with chills. The muscles of his neck ached – screamed – to lengthen and bend him towards her face. He longed to feel her breath on his cheek, he longed to feel the fullness of her mouth – her fathomless pupils bore into him as her lips parted –

_Oh, god_.

He lifted himself away with surprising velocity, and grabbed a thick textbook almost as if he was going to attack her with it.

"Time to calm down now, though, I think," he breathed. "You need to get some writing done before your shift."

* * *

He paced, then stalked, then stopped, then picked up a book and flung it across the room.  
He sat down, and stood up again.  
He pulled at his hair.

Storming into the bathroom, he gripped the sides of the sink and glared into his reflection. The stubble was fast-growing over his jaw and upper lip, black laced with silver, salt and pepper. He didn't look like Jonathan Crane. He didn't look like anybody of note. No glasses, no cool and collected expression, poised to throw a mocking glance at the world beneath him. The brow was stubbornly furrowed in a mess of nerves. The teeth were clenched together beneath the taut, unsmiling mouth. He looked like a failure. He looked like a man who didn't have the guts to go out and get what he wanted.

Did he? Did he have the guts to _do_ what his gut told him?  
It was shameful, it was silly, it was everything he had ever scorned since his mother had walked in that night.

His body shuddered violently, as though to remind him that it existed too, that it had desires of its own, and if those desires were neglected it would have to take action against his cold, controlling mind. It would begin to buck just like a bronco. And who knew what would happen once his two spheres declared war on one another.

But he'd promised himself. He'd sworn to himself. Lying in bed whimpering into his pillow, he swore that he would never again subject himself to sordid embarrassing activities, never associate himself with that slut's type again, never lust before loving and being loved in return. Even though he'd known that nobody would ever be able to love him, and his promise therefore damned him to eternal chastity. It had made him frigid, unpleasant, effeminate even. But at least he'd had his dignity.

He cursed, and smashed a fist against the bathroom tiles.  
His gut was mulling over the idea that his short beard would be an effective disguise, out there.  
It was also pushing at the fact that there was a smart suit hanging up on the curtain rail for him, with a decent pair of shoes.

Another gift from _darling Alice_. For his _comfort_. The word meant nothing to him. She had torn it away as soon as offered it.

Ten minutes later he was striding along dimly lit pavements, keeping his eyes firmly on those polished black brogues. It hadn't been difficult to locate her safely stashed bank notes, just by thinking like she thought. Funny, how living with somebody did that to you.

_Sapphire _was relatively busy. Apparently it was prime time, just after eleven, before the Friday night crowds came heaving in. He strolled straight past the bouncer, slipping him a twenty, and paid the same again to the bored-looking woman sat in the entrance booth. The expression of 'back to the nose grind' was plastered onto every face – even the clients'. They were all so upset at the being saved. They were stepping back into their old roles like disused uniforms, grimacing as the familiarity settled in. He snorted internally at them all, and showed himself to the main floor with all the pretended confidence of a man who knew exactly what was expected of him in a strip club. And he pulled it off well. He had to.

The common ground was dotted with small tables, faces half-shadowed, half-turned to the two main stages on opposite sides of the room.

He waited at the bar to order a quick vodka tonic – how long had it been since he'd had the luxury of his favourite drink! – and began to grow smug. Nobody looked at him. Why would they? They were all men, too busy looking at the women.

He looked too, though his eyes were peeled for just one face, just one petite figure sashaying across that stage, flexing around that pole… whichever one of the platforms it was. His gaze darted back and forth between them, at the girls fluctuating in and out of sight as they stalked, twisted, swapped, twirled. She would be rich blonde tonight, with another full fringe to hide her dark brows.

But – he ordered, barely looking at the bartender – but she wasn't anywhere. She wasn't on either platform.  
For a moment he felt his stomach plummet.

Eyes raking around the room, scouring every corner, he was beginning to wonder if she was occupied in a private room somewhere when – no – a flash of golden yellow caught him. Up there, in a subtly roped off section, a gloomy corner with a leather sofa and long, low table.

A burly bloke, impeccably dressed, with a glass of champagne in one hand and a fifty dollar note in the other.  
A note which quickly disappeared into her red silk garter with a flick of his stubby, practised fingers.  
His lips moved in a smooth stream of orders, compliments, who knew.  
Whatever it was, he was getting his money's worth.

She flowed like water, snapped like elastic, writhed like animals. She tipped her head back, bent her knees, parted her thighs, rolled her hips, curved her spine, let the luscious tumbles of blonde tresses stroke her exposed skin. Her lips were blood-red, matching the layers of crimson chiffon clinging to her most delicate features, obscene in their scarcity. The irises flashed like silver steel, outlined sensuously in bold black.

Crane took his drink wordlessly, throwing money at the bartender, not waiting for change.  
There was a discreet table not far from her, in the shade, where he could watch without being watched.

Never, before now, had he thought of himself as a warped individual. Only misunderstood, or else superior. Now, in this moment, he knew what it was to feel perverted, disgusting, horrific. But he couldn't _not_ look. He couldn't avert his eyes from that image, which had become everything he wanted in this instant. All other thoughts of triumph, glory, power, bowed to this searing, roaring, inane turbulence of feeling.

He began to notice that her client was more than happily inebriated. She drew closer, so much closer, clutching the back of the sofa with one hand for support as she arched and moved above him. The other hand began to creep, so very innocently, towards the wad of cash protruding from his inner pocket.

Only a couple of notes, nothing he would miss – but there it was, swiftly deposited in the garter, with no suspicion.  
A right modern Artful Dodger, with rather an updated method of distraction.

Her dance finished not soon after, and bending down to give her unwittingly generous client a light, chaste kiss on the cheek, she glided away across the main floor like a vision. In moments, she was in and amongst the other girls on one of the main stages.

He imagined calling her to a private room, and offering her own money as payment.  
Would she scold him? Would she laugh?  
Would she dance?

The tangle of women was beginning to hurt his eyes. His conscience – wherever that had come from – bore down on him like the hand of god itself. He had never felt so unholy, so deceptive, as in the past ten minutes.

It was time for him to be going, before he was caught out, by her or by anyone else.

* * *

He let himself into the flat in the usual fashion – simply pushing the splintered door aside – his feet utterly sore from hours of treading the pavements, working off the anguish, unravelling the bunches of his muscles. The imprint of her image on his mind hadn't faded, but at least he didn't feel like punching a wall anymore. In fact, it took him three seconds to realise that there was somebody else in the apartment with him. Somebody who wasn't Alice.

He turned to the kitchenette and confronted not one but two somebodies. Squatters. Street rats.  
Raiding Alice's cupboard.

Neither one had time to emit more than a squeak before he had them by the scruff of the neck. Their feet hung inches from the floor as he scowled down into the grubby, large-eyed faces. No more than fifteen, the both of them, boy and girl. Packets of crackers and tinned beans clattered to the floor.

"How dare you," he hissed between grating teeth. "Can't you tell what kind of person lives here?"  
"Please Sir, we didn't turn the lights on," the boy squealed.  
It was true. They had gone straight for the food with the singular intent of the half-starved.

"This is somebody's _home_. It isn't legal any more, to just break in wherever you like."  
"We're sorry Sir but we don't got a home to go to."  
"Is that my problem?"  
"No, Sir!"  
"No. That's right. My only problem is to protect what's not yours to take."

Their feet thudded against the linoleum all at once. He straightened to his full, authoritative height.

"If you ever catch other people round this place, you tell them it's occupied. You tell them to think twice."  
"We will, Sir."  
"Well, clear off, then, before I change my mind and pulverise you."

They were almost out of the door before he called, "Wait!"  
The quivering, crumpled faces peered over their skinny shoulders at him.  
He pointed to the scattered objects on the floor.

"You forgot your food."

Their eyes betrayed suspicion for just an instant, before they leapt on the packets and tins like famished mongrels. Not even fear of deceit could hold up against hunger. In the time it took him to blink once, they had disappeared.

He was trembling.

With a sigh, he turned back to the kitchenette and began to clear its scattered contents back into their rightful cupboards.

He needed another walk, but there was no time now. She could be back at any point.  
The suit was hanging as it had before on the curtain rail. He wore his clothes from earlier that day.  
Lord knew he was not going to be caught by her in this state in something as degrading as pyjamas.

Ten minutes, twenty, thirty passed with excruciating sluggishness. He pressed his forehead to the steeple of his hands, elbows digging into his knees, as he perched on the edge of the sofa. Often he stayed in that position for so long he felt as though he was meditating. Really he was like a shaken soda can. Raging inside. Waiting for a moment of release.

He still didn't know what he would do when she arrived.

Thirty seconds later, a chink of light from the corridor appeared and widened on the linoleum. He made no pretence of being asleep – he made no pretence of being relaxed. Her shoulders under the brown jacket tensed immediately, made obvious by the clear cut of her silhouette. His breathing rocketed and he fought to keep it quiet.

"Hey," she said.

If he spoke now his voice would only humiliate him. He couldn't look like an idiot. Not now. Not when it was twenty-six minutes past two in the morning, and it all mattered so much. Not when he was beginning to discover that he adored everything about her that hurt. Not when he wanted – needed – her to love him with the same desperation.

"You alright?" came her concerned tone in the dimness, as her heels resounded towards him slowly.

He gazed at her outline until it became a detailed picture. The red lipstick clean gone, but the eyes still smoky and dark. The blonde replaced once again with curly copper brown. She was the demon woman from the strip club, but she was also Alice. She wore Alice's clothes, she had Alice's voice.

He managed to nod once.

Sensing the pressure rolling off him, she curved her path towards her bedroom door in order to sidle past.  
She thought he needed space. _Space_. All his life, it was the only thing he'd been given, the only thing he could count on.

He hated space. He detested space. He wanted to murder every inch of the stuff that separated him from her.

Suddenly he was rising from the couch – bringing his hands to his sides. His name echoed from her mouth, softly, urgently.  
He was striding with such savage motion straight towards her, cutting a line through the air.

With a great, thrilling, awful surge of energy through his torso and his arms he caught her up in his momentum, sweeping her on, half-carrying her weightless body, until her back thudded against the wall and a rush of air poured from her chest, conveying to him the sweetest scent of mints and perfume.

Her startled eyes gripped him. Her jaw slackened sensuously as he felt the adrenaline gushing through her.

His palms were flat and taut, pressing the wall on either side of her. The contours of her body melded with his own as he arched against that soft supple warm flesh, drinking in air that had suddenly become so beautiful to breathe, his lungs delighting in the simple act of inhaling, bringing vital life, vital strength.

Her hands still lay between their chests like a last barrier, absorbing the drumming of their hearts.  
His hips surged with more force against her, pinning her, and she gave one small, one unbearably arousing moan.

He dipped his head, faltering.  
Then, fingers curling automatically to cradle her face in his hands, he sealed his lips over her own.

If you asked him later exactly what his first real kiss felt like, he wouldn't be able to tell you.

It was as though he were being lifted from his own body, into the air, into an ecstasy of pure sensation, and for a moment he had thought that he was dying. He hadn't minded one bit. It was the most excruciatingly, beautifully, helplessly incredible he had ever felt. Nothing, nothing, had ever compared to this. The only incident with a contending _intensity_ of feeling was the time his own fear gas had been used on him. Aside from that, there was no resemblance.

He had wanted it to go on and on and for life to never be anything different.

Her hands snaked upwards to fold around his neck, as with a long sigh of pleasure, she relaxed into his hold. For a moment they were frozen, suspended, as he wondered what on earth to do next – but then her lips had parted against his and closed again, rearranging, revitalising the gorgeous sensual flow of endorphins from his brain to every part of his body. Her tongue brushed cheekily, soft, moist, heavenly, against his, and he followed her lead with fervour.

Only two minutes later – or two hours, who could tell? – she broke away, and took his hand in her own to kiss the tips of his fingers one by one.

"Todd. Do you want to sleep on the sofa tonight?"  
"Not really."  
"No."  
"We don't have to –" he began.  
"No, I don't think we should, but –"  
"I'd rather be with you, tonight."  
"Me too."

She was leading him softly over the threshold of her bedroom and into the deeper darkness.

He lay obediently, stripped down to his boxer shorts under the duvet, and pretended not to peek as she changed. He half-smiled as the red frills of chiffon made their second appearance of the night, but she took them off under the long baggy t-shirt that served as her pyjamas, and threw on some cute shorts as an afterthought.

The bear with his bow tie took secondary place upon the floor.

"Todd," she hummed contentedly as her cool body slid against his, her spine pressed to his torso, the backs of her legs cradled by the fronts of his. He twisted his ankles round to warm her toes, as he found himself sinking, or floating, who knew which, in their mutual heat and the tenderness of fresh sheets against his exposed skin, She was his anchor in this world of thoughtless bliss, between sleeping and waking, overwhelmed by a sense of utmost safety.

There were no more words, as they lay soaking, basking in the turning moments. There was no need.

He was certain, as he drifted and submerged, that no nightmares could possibly touch him tonight.

* * *

Hope you liked! Please review!


	21. Despair

'**Night Terror' by Laura Marling.**

_I woke up and he was screaming, I'd left him dreaming  
I roll over and shake him tightly, and whisper, "If they want you, then they're gonna have to fight me"  
If I look back and he is screaming, I'd left him dreaming, the dangers fade  
I'll run back and shake him tightly  
And scream, "If they want him, then they're gonna have to fight me."_

* * *

Despair.

His body jerked. Sheets strangled him. He cried out.

_He is twenty-one years old, hunched over a cold untouched steak and chips, looking through the restaurant window at the man's retreating back. Such loneliness and desolation surges over him, a hollow roar that shakes his bones and withers him to the very heart. A chill, a shiver passes through his chest, though there is no draught, and the sun is setting brilliantly outside._

He was in a bed, lashing out against the world with his bare hands.  
And suddenly, impossibly, she was there beside him. Warm and soft and gentle.

"Todd, Todd, sshhh, come on. Come on. It's okay."

There were arms around him – willingly, tightly around him – hands that caressed his head and pulled it onto the pillow of her chest. A heartbeat touched him tenderly from the other side of her ribs. A pair of summer-soft lips pressed themselves to his clammy forehead, the breeze of her breath skimming over his skin like a second kiss. He was encased, enveloped, swathed and coddled in the smoothness, the sweetness of the flesh of Woman, her melodious murmur vibrating through him, her velvet touch everywhere around him, cradling his heavy head and his broken back like a child. Her fingers washed through his hair, massaging him into a blissful and tingling surrender. He gasped against her, his pulse still racing from the visions blurring before his eyes, knuckles strained around the fabric of her baggy t-shirt, as he clung to her like he was clutching at sanity.

"Ssshhhh," she was still urging quietly, her words drawing out and becoming infrequent. "I've got you."  
"Alice," was all he sighed as he finally relaxed into the safe haven of her hold.  
"That sounded like an awful dream."  
"It was. It was."

She kissed his brow again, and then his lips. His stomach seemed to kindle and grow hot at the sensation, the cushioned pressure of her full mouth, and the magic life that he inhaled hungrily at her touch.

"Tell me," she breathed as she tucked his head back under her chin.

For a moment he stiffened and strained and almost writhed against her, the tender closeness of her body tearing open a vast and agonising void within him. A void that he had kept well hidden, that he had limited to his nightmares, that he had rather not venture into while so vulnerable and prone to the wild emotions she triggered, like an exposed nerve. But at the same time that he cringed away he knew in his gut that she would listen, that she would be on his side, that she would give him what he most needed. She was so human that he felt her touch alone might turn him, accidentally, like Pinnochio, back into a real boy – a real man.

His mind railed against the very thought. What good was human? What good was anything she could give him? Weakness.

But there was something in him that surrendered to this intimacy, that craved to feel the same as everybody else felt, to know that he wasn't alone. He ached to the point of insanity, having this so close and so tempting, and she could make it all stop if he would only, finally, open himself in all his misery to her for her inspection, and eventually her sympathy. She could make it go away. She would protect him.

His every fibre railed against the thought as soon as he had conceived of it.  
This wasn't him, this wasn't Jonathan Crane, this wasn't in his nature, _this wasn't him._  
In all his games of pretending, in his deceit of her, in putting on another mask to gain her trust, he was forgetting himself.

Crane wasn't polite, he wasn't grateful, he wasn't content in others' company. He didn't share and he didn't empathise and he certainly didn't form attachments, and above all he didn't trust. He didn't give the time of day, let alone handing over his bared soul to an almost-stranger on a whim, knowingly granting them the power to judge him and laugh at him. Crane was Crane's friend. Crane looked after himself and delighted in subjecting others. Crane had created Scarecrow for this purpose. And where was Scarecrow now, left to his own devices? He had grown soft and slimy and sentimental. He had been degraded to this – to sharing a bed, the most intimate of places, with one of the hateful weaker sex, a woman who connived and manipulated and boasted and sniggered, just like every other woman. She would wring his heart and stomp it into the carpet before she ran from him, like she ran from all men, once she had taken as much as she wanted from them.

He was losing himself because of her.

It was this string of thoughts that tipped him towards a build-up of frustration and conflict which emerged from his mouth in a strange and desperate snarl. He curled up into himself, encased in her arms, overcome with emotion. _Emotion_. He hadn't felt anything like this in more than a decade. Not since he had lost his capacity for sentiment to a degree of almost complete inhumanity.

He snarled because Crane desperately fought against this uprising, like a man sitting heavily on the lid of a box, trying to suppress whatever monster was attempting to burst forth from it. Pandora's box, perhaps.

He sobbed because Jonathan was so weak, and just as frantically wished that he could give into Alice's comfort, the unfamiliar and overwhelming relief of human contact. He wished to let go of Crane and allow himself, just once, the bliss of naivety believing himself safe in the confidence of another.

But Jonathan was long gone. He resided only in those nightmares, memories of a time when things could still have been turned around, when the vital components of his soul might still have been saved. There was no hope of that now. Crane had sunk deep into his skin and taken hold. The bitterness had hardened and resolved into the man that harboured Scarecrow. He had worked for so long to create this impenetrable armour of inhumanity. It could never be reversed.

And yet here she was, tapping away at it, like a sparrow pecking the foil lid off a milk bottle.

Was he Crane or was he Jonathan? Was he Scarecrow or was he Todd?

Taken from this bed, given time to compose himself, he would have sworn to being Crane, an indomitable force of spite and crime and selfishness, simply put under a huge amount of pressure. But now – now in the silky sheets, wrapped in the velvet of her skin, with his chest kindling aflame in response to some deep urge that welled up – with her, all of her, so close to his barriers and already trying to pry her way inside them, with that innocent sorrowful protective look in her silver-grey eyes… he couldn't honestly say that he wanted to get away. He couldn't argue that he was entirely Crane, independent, unfeeling. The vestiges of his humanity had been awakened, and they ran riot with the hot blood and hotter adrenaline around his body.

Who was he?

The answer was in those nightmares, somewhere, perhaps hidden, perhaps encompassed by their entirety. He needed to tell somebody aloud. He needed to remember who he was. He needed to unburden himself of the past. So he took a deep breath, knowing full well the ways in which he would regret this.

And he began to tell her the mildly edited story of his life.

"The Chief Executive handed me my qualification – my solid A – ninety-eight percent. I could feel every pair of eyes on the back of my head and I almost ran straight off the stage. But there was still the photograph." He paused to collect the moment properly and translate it into words, as Alice's fingers circled constantly across his scalp. "I turned around to look at the camera. Something caught my eye in the crowd. A hand, just sticking up in the air. Not waving. Just there. Right at the back. I saw his face – for the first time in six years – my dad."

The only indication she gave of understanding was to squeeze him tighter.

"He met me after the ceremony. He was there for my family photo. Suddenly I wasn't the odd one out, I had someone too. He took me to a fancy place for dinner, and started to say what he wanted to say."

He had been talking for what felt like the whole day. He had started off in bullet points – but the freeze-frames had rolled on into filmstrips in his mind and suddenly he was talking in paragraphs and essays, all as it occurred to him, blow-by-blow. And when he said it aloud the moving pictures were coloured with emotion, the real emotions of those real moments, and it began to show in his voice. He had been on the verge of tears – _tears _– three times already. She hadn't said a word in all this time. She hadn't shushed him when he choked up. She had just been listening. Somehow it made him feel more understood than anything she could have said. She recognised the gravity of his confession. She knew he needed to go on uninterrupted.

"It was – it was strange. I wanted to be friendly to him because I was surprised, and because I had missed him in my own way, and he didn't look at all like he used to. His suit was fresh and had some flair. He had wrinkles from smiling. He sat me down and ordered me fillet steak – really splashed out. He sat there looking at me as if for the first time, over a beer. My father drinking beer, looking relaxed, _smiling _at me. He said, 'you look so different'. Then he said, 'it's probably because I've changed, too, here', and tapped his head. He kept looking at me for a while and then he sort of sighed, and I knew that he was going to ask for something, and my stomach started to turn cold and I wasn't hungry any more. I'd been wary – I didn't know how to feel – or if I should feel anything – but suddenly I felt scared. Because I knew that this dinner couldn't last, and it wouldn't always be fillet steak and the setting sun and smiling. It couldn't be. It hadn't been before. You know why? _Time_. Time wears people down, time made my father hate me, and time made him love me again while I was gone. The steak came but I didn't eat because he was about to say it, and I didn't want him to. He leaned in and put his beer down, and he told me that he was in a much better place. That he was very happy and settled with Matthew. That he felt really, truly _stable_, after a long time of feeling like he didn't know which way was up. He said that he was sorry for everything. He was sorry for leaving me when I needed him. But now he could be the father he'd always wanted to be, we could have a real relationship with nothing hidden and nothing bad between us. I could learn to love him."

His throat was swollen and painful. He pushed on.

"He said all this, and he sounded like he really meant it. And all the time I sat still and said nothing. He stopped and smiled again, and waited for me to tell him yes. Of course I wanted my father back, my real father, not the shell of a man he had been. And I –" his voice finally broke, "I looked him in the eye and only moved my mouth to say, 'no thank you'."

He held up a finger, _give me a moment_, as the convulsions dominated his body and rendered him powerless to speak. He needed to scream. If he screamed loud enough would it overcome the boundaries of Time itself, echo backwards through the years, to reach that same restaurant and warn himself of what he was about to do – what kind of person he was setting himself up to become.

"He stared at me – and asked me what I meant. I was so cold. I was all frozen inside. And I said again, 'no thank you'. I said, 'you've done enough'. The smile was gone and – and I could see all those frown lines – just as clearly as before. He sort of shrank, like he was shedding weight, right in front of me. Then he said, 'are you sure?' – and I said, 'perfectly sure'. He said he was sorry again. I didn't even – I just looked at my food, and knew I wasn't going to eat it. About ten seconds later – he got up – pulled out a wad of, of notes, and put them on the table – in front of me – and he walked – out of the door."

The last four words were just a high-pitched wail, barely formed. He couldn't breathe.

He finally looked up at her, for the first time since he had started talking, and saw her expression.  
Her cheeks were glossy with countless silent tears. Her lips pressed together to stop themselves from trembling.

"You're crying," he stated, blankly, uncomprehendingly.  
She nodded, her delicate features creasing slightly.

His fingers unclenched from her t-shirt and reached up to slowly dry her face. Those tears shouldn't be there.

"Nobody has ever cried for me," he murmured as he looked straight into her eyes without a thought.  
It wasn't uncomfortable. It felt more like she was cradling him in her gaze, and everything was quite soft and light.

He had no idea who he was, but that was alright as long as he didn't have to do anything but this, ever again.

She dipped towards him until their foreheads were pressed firmly together, noses almost touching, and then she disappeared as his eyes closed automatically with hers. They listened to one another's breathing, and held on. He wouldn't have clung any tighter if they were adrift at sea and he'd have drowned if he let go. In the moment it really felt that way, that she was his oxygen and his sanity – what was left of it – everything that impelled him to stay alive.

"Charlie," she whispered.  
He stiffened against her. She had called him a different name by mistake.  
Was it an old lover she was thinking of now, in bed with Crane? With Jonathan? With Todd? With whoever he was?

"Charlie," she said again, more clearly, "is my little sister."  
"W-what?"  
Her voice came with difficulty, strained and low. "That's what I dream about."  
"What do you dream?"  
"That she's walking into the road and she can't hear me screaming."

Alice sucked in one last breath, and then began to sob in earnest. He found himself gripping her even closer, tighter than he would have thought possible. She was curling up like a hedgehog, like there was some magnetic force at her centre and she would soon implode into nothingness, that she could cry herself into a void in space. He held her as straight as he could just to keep her inside the Universe, and felt the genuine pull of sorrow in his stomach, the sorrow of another person's pains.

"Is she dead?" he asked softly, in a voice that didn't belong to him.

She convulsed violently, almost striking him with her legs. She began to beat her fists against the pillows. For a moment he was afraid of her. But she fell back, breathing heavily, once again in the grasp of despair.

"The last time I saw her – I tried to shake her awake. The hospital staff had to pull me off. The last thing I did was reach for the plug. I really thought I was going – to do it. For her."

"Would you have? If they hadn't grabbed you?"  
He couldn't help it. Even seeing her in this state, even with pity stinging his own eyes, he couldn't help but ask. It was the very crux of her, it was what he needed to know about her. All of his years of training made him itch to puzzle her out. Even if she became boring afterwards, even if that was her mystery thrown away. He wanted it. He craved it.

She ran a hand across her face and looked at the ceiling. "I don't know. I honestly don't know. I love her more than I love anything. It must be torture for her, but – but she's alive, and I don't want her to stop. I'm afraid for her, of what's after, or that there's nothing at all." Her eyes darted back to him. "You're the only guy I've ever told. Okay? So that's that."  
"I'm glad you did."

It was over. And she didn't look any different. She didn't seem like a solved puzzle.  
Instead she collected herself slowly, forcing her breathing into a measured rhythm, and resumed her reassuring grip around his torso. She tucked his head back under her chin and sighed.

"You must have been terrified, when you woke up strapped to my chair."  
"It wasn't very comfortable, no."  
"But I mean – having to joke and be friendly, having to make eye contact, hoping I didn't think you were lying. You're not – equipped – for that kind of situation. It must have been awful and I'm sorry. You didn't deserve it."

For a moment he forgot that he was Crane, and chose to pretend that everything she said was true.

"I've sort of – become what you expected me to be, I suppose," he said. "I've never felt this relaxed with anybody."  
"You seem like such an ordinary guy. I had no idea. You're an excellent actor."  
"You were pointing a gun at me."  
"You could have told me afterwards."  
"I wanted you to like me. Nobody's ever liked me before."

She made a small noise and pulled him even closer, kissing the top of his head again.

"I _do_ like you, Todd, and not because of who you're pretending to be. Don't be afraid. I'm nevergoing to let anyonemake you feel like you're not good enough. You are _funny_, and you're _fun_, and you're intelligent, and you're polite and thoughtful and so good to be around, and you're sexy and adorable –"

"What?"  
He felt her smiling against his forehead.  
"You heard."  
"You really – really think so? Are you just saying it?"

She finally broke away so that she could look at him properly.  
"You haven't had much luck with your women, have you?" she smirked. "A hooker and now a stripper."  
"You're not a stripper to me," he half-lied.

She was. Of course she was. But she was also more.

"I'm making a point, Todd. You've been misunderstood by everyone, but all it took was a chance for me to see past the things that people don't normally get. I see you, properly, and nothing could make me dislike you. You shouldn't have to hide anything. I care about you. I want things to be alright for you, and I'm going to help you however I can. Okay?"

He nodded mutely, torn between anguished gratitude and hysteria. He almost wanted to tell her the real story and see how much she liked him afterwards. Just for the fun of it. Just to crush any hope he might be storing by her, for a chance at a real relationship with another human being.

She was holding his gaze intensely, her eyes flashing with concern and something else, something more powerful.

"Todd," she murmured urgently, "you've kept your head down for too long. You've wasted your talents for too long, with nobody who was there for you, and no confidence, and no hope of getting out. But you _have_ to get out, and this is it, Todd, this is fate telling you to get your arse in gear and do something real with your life. You don't believe in yourself and that's the problem. But you _should_. You're amazing, you're capable, you're clever, you're resourceful. Whatever it is you want, you should go out there and take it, grab the bull by both horns, show them all what you can do, who you _really_ are. You don't have to stand in everybody else's shadow for the rest of your life. I'll be disappointed if you do."

Her lips were petal-soft against his mouth, as she sealed this revelation with a kiss more tender than anything he'd ever experienced. His brain was giddy, alight like a blazing firework factory. The triumph rushed upon him at the same time that a kernel of flame sputtered to life in his gut and roused him, reacting to her electric touch.

He _could _go out and get whatever he wanted. He _could_ show them all what he was really made of. Alone, he would never have dared. But now he had somebody who believed in him – and that made all the difference.

Already she was breaking off again, stroking his cheek fondly, and sliding out of bed.  
"I'm going for a shower. See you in five."

As she disappeared with a towel slung over one arm, he stretched flat out on his back and took several deep breaths, trying to steady his thoughts against the blank whiteness of the ceiling.

He had felt a spark of something, there, at her words of courage and success, as she had kissed him with her fingers tangled in his hair. There had been a movement in his chest, energy like a gathering wave captured in his hips, the muscles of his legs tensing in readiness. He wanted to. For the first time in an age, he wanted somebody in a physical way.

What had stopped him?

With a sinking feeling he admitted the fact to himself. He couldn't really, truly desire her until she was at his mercy. She could flaunt herself all she liked in her club, she could mother him and mollycoddle him, she could tell him to achieve things for himself, but none of it was quite enough. The will was too strong in him. He had taught himself to love power and authority over everything else.

When she looked at him with eyes full of fear instead of comfort, then, and only then, could he take her as he wished, as a plaything and an experiment, as a subject and not an equal.

Crane was too deeply rooted in him to disappear, ever. No matter how Jonathan or Todd fought for their liberty, Crane controlled and loved to control. It was Crane who ran through his blood and ruled his body and told him what to find pleasing or repulsive, what to love and what to hate. Alice was convenient, and so Crane allowed Jonathan to enjoy the benefits of her company, to believe her claims to affection. Jonathan was a child on a leash. He was only allowed to go so far. And now here he was, pressing his hands against the walls of his restrictions, realising exactly what he could not have for himself. A loving, natural, normal relationship.

Jonathan was a prisoner. Crane wore the mask of Todd, really.  
Todd wasn't an escape route for Jonathan, no matter how much he might secretly have wished for it.

Soon something would have to give, one way or another.

Jonathan shivered inside Crane's cage and hoped against hope that Alice wouldn't be the one to get hurt.

* * *

**Sorry it's been so long! There weren't many reviews last time and I really lost heart. Get this - there were 118 viewers just for the last chapter, and a grand total of THREE reviews. Thank you so much to those who took the small effort to leave me a comment. I spend at least three hours on each of these chapters, and it takes ten seconds to write a short review, so you can see why it's frustrating. Hopefully you will enjoy this chapter too, and this time leave me a little something so I know I should carry on. Like I always say, the best is yet to come. There are big things up ahead.**


	22. Gotham's Reckoning

'**Breezeblocks' by alt-J**

_She may contain the urge to run away  
But hold her down with soggy clothes and breezeblocks  
Muscle to muscle and toe to toe  
The fear has gripped me but here I go  
She's morphine, queen of my vaccine, my love, my love  
Please don't go, I'll eat you whole, I love you so, I love you so._

* * *

Gotham's Reckoning.

"Can you hear that?"

He glanced up to catch her in the doorway, a blue towel loosely wrapped around her body. Her hair was dark and tangled and damp, her cheeks fresh and rosy. She was so comfortably natural, from the way she leaned more onto one bare leg, to the expression on her face that said she wasn't even thinking about being half naked. Something else had grasped her attention. His stomach fluttered childishly as he realised how much he liked her features, all lit up like that. He mentally punched himself.

"Hear what?" he managed.  
"A couple of apartments over, I think, I can hear bumping, and voices. People must be moving back in."  
"Huh."

She took him in with one look, and understood his sharpness.  
"No-one's going to see you. It'll be just like before. You didn't make much noise before, when I was out?"  
"No."  
"Well, then."  
"Yeah."

He plucked at the sheets, suddenly hyper-aware that he was still only wearing boxer shorts. Jonathan was straining so hard against Crane's restraints, as though somebody was literally pressing against his skin from the inside.

_Go back to where you came from_, he hissed.  
Jonathan stirred with longing. He wanted to confess. If not the whole truth, then enough to mean something to him.  
_You don't belong here. You aren't real any more. I'm in charge now.  
_Jonathan flailed and kicked, rattling at the cage bars.  
_Would you __**stay out of it**__?_

He was frowning heavily, pretending to look at a feather poking out of one of the pillows. Alice noticed.  
Jonathan was making her notice, he was making this happen, even while Crane shoved him away. He was slippery.

And he was fighting for control of Crane's mouth right at this moment.

"Todd," she murmured, drifting closer to the bed, and Jonathan was lifting his arms like a child to her, yearning.  
Crane kept his own pinned at his sides, and coughed.  
"I'm fine," he said a little roughly, "it's just difficult, you know, being here all the time."

Even trying to be his smooth, controlled, unrelenting self, he had to pretend towards Alice. He couldn't break his image now, when she was so useful to him. And not when she still had potential to be… to be something to Crane, and not just Jonathan. That image of her as his accomplice still stuck in his mind.

Jonathan craved Alice for her womanliness, her soft deliciousness, the sheer comfort of her words, her touch, her role as his protector. He wanted her, in the way that only disappointed sons want a lover, a sexual surrogate. He and Crane had studied cases like it, and Crane sneered on him as such – as a case, to be solved and suppressed.

But who could suppress such desperation? How could he stem the flow of emotions from a wound that had never really closed?

Crane, as much as he loathed attachments, craved her mind and its glitches, its complexes. He wanted to know what made her tick, her every weak spot. He hungered for her darkest secrets and her deepest fears, the things that gave her hope and the things that sparked her to fury. He wanted to know all of her, so that he could break her from the inside out, one day. When he chose to.

And then – and _then_ – when she was at his mercy – both Jonathan and Crane would get their same, last wish. To indulge in that forbidden pleasure, to make her succumb to their unquestioned superiority. Jonathan would have his comfort: a partner who was just as terrified as he was. Crane would have his wish for domination fulfilled: the untameable creature bending to his will.

Maybe he would tie her to that very same chair and seduce her at gunpoint. The irony certainly wouldn't be lost on her.

While in his mind's eye she sat restrained and helpless, before his real eyes she was advancing towards him with the softest sympathy, and Jonathan couldn't bear it any longer. Let Crane punish him later. He had to take advantage of his own distraction.

"I'm afraid, Alice," he blurted out, immediately clamming up again as Crane lashed out in rage.

But she was here, she would protect him from himself, for now. Her fingers were already slotting between his own, her other hand curling around his neck, half-cradling his jaw delicately.

"Why are you afraid?" she breathed as her eyes swept him up like a wave.

He trembled, gaze fixated upon her, grappling for control, for the power to say what he wanted to say.  
"I'm afraid of myself. I don't know who I am, since you found me. I don't know what – who – I'm becoming."  
"What do you mean?"

"I don't – I mean – I was settled, in who I was. Now you're here, you change everything. Nobody gets this close. Not ever. I was used to, to not, to not –" he gulped in oxygen, "not _feeling_ all that much. But I was on my own, then – and what you said about, about not being in other people's shadows. I don't know what to think or feel or do, or…"

Her thumb was pressed gently over his lips, smoothing them like moulded clay. She nodded slightly.

"There's no pressure on you to _become_ anything. I don't have to be involved. I don't have to make you feel anything."  
"It's not really that simple," he wheezed, "I can't help what I feel. I could. But now I can't."  
"I'm here for your benefit, not to stress you out."  
"It's _me _that stresses me out."  
"Well, talking about it is a start. Maybe it will help you into whatever the next stage is?"

He laughed aloud at that, involuntarily and without real humour. It rang hollow.  
If she knew what she was really saying…

She drew closer, and the energy suddenly pulsed between them like heat or magnetic currents as he felt the brush of her breath on his skin, mint flavoured from the toothpaste. The urge to seize her, to kiss her feverishly, swelled in his stomach like an action already executed, waiting for him to echo it. In his mind he did it over and over, a hand clasped around the back of her neck to pull her in, his free fingers tracing the line of her jaw tenderly, his brain rushing into an adrenaline-fueled oblivion of ecstasy.

And then quite suddenly, it happened again, only this time in real life.

She gave a small gasp as he pounced abruptly, catching her mouth closed against his own with a hunger impossible to reason with, a hunger that could only be obeyed. He consumed her, drinking in air that tingled like ethereal fire. Their lips moved together, finding new ways, new bursts of sensation with every stroke – a duel – a dance. As he combed her wet hair with both hands, crushing his nose against her cheek with the force of his kiss, he realised that he was not hungry but _starving_. Starved of contact, famished for affection.

So far she had been clutching the fabric around herself, allowing him to control her, tilting her head in his hands.

Now as their lips began to scorch together she became supple to the touch, almost limp, as though something was taking hold of her. She relented gradually, bit by bit. Finally one hand and then the other was grasping at his bare shoulders as she shifted towards him, across the covers that hid him from the waist down, and the towel was falling away. He heard the soft slither as it hit the bed.

Jonathan panicked.

"What's wrong?" she exclaimed as he fumbled to pull it back around her.  
"Nothing's wrong, nothing's wrong. I just wasn't – suggesting that – I only wanted – I just haven't been kissed. In a while. I got carried away," he spluttered.  
"Sure," that understanding look was infuriating Crane. "Sorry. I thought I was good at reading signals."  
"I'm not your average man," he replied with an ironic twist of the mouth.

_Because I can't, without Him wanting you too. And I can't let him near you like that.  
I don't know if I could stop him._

Alice's small conspiring smirk was supposed to be comforting. "You shouldn't want average. You're much better than that."  
"So you keep telling me."  
"Anyone could see there's something bigger about you. Something waiting to happen, you know?"  
He trembled. "Kind of."  
"If signals aren't going to work out, let's try communicating," she said with a wry grin. "I've got to get ready."  
"Networking today?"  
"Someone's got another story for me, I'll bet. You go and shower while I change, okay?"  
"Alright."

He edged out from under the sheets, hideously aware of his own exposed body – scrawny and pale compared to her soft, shapely, honey-tinted flesh. A glance at her made him flush furiously. She didn't seem to agree with his self-criticism. Her lower lip was trapped unconsciously between her teeth, silver-grey eyes unblinking and intense.

"Go away," she said playfully, and threw his own towel at him, pushing him right out of the room.

As the water engulfed him, falling over his shoulders and warming his rigid muscles, he scrubbed at his skin with too much vigour. Trying to wash away what, exactly? Crane, who was embedded like a tattoo into every inch of him? Jonathan, still rotting away at the core? Todd, who had caused all of this trouble, a costume super-glued to his skin, to his personality?

Or was it this new and nagging idea that was crawling, creeping towards the forefront of his mind – an idea that Alice herself had injected him with? The idea that he could, in fact, rise above all obstacles and all competition to become what he had always wanted to? The ultimate villain, the one and only authority figure of this city?

Whatever he was really trying to dislodge, none of these things was going to budge. He felt wedged in on all sides, by all different aspects of himself, as though they were separate from him. As though he was caught in the middle of a war that he didn't belong to. A bystander to his own horrific situation.

He rested his head against the cool tiles as if trying to freeze his thoughts.

By the time he emerged from the bathroom, Alice was gone. _Good_, Crane thought. The longer she was out of his way, the more time he had to organise himself. To start putting his plans into action. Because Crane had decided. Crane was going to take Alice's advice as far as he could possibly stretch it.

Crane was going for Gotham City.

* * *

No waaayyyy! What will happen next? What are Crane's crazy schemes? Review to find out! ;-)


	23. Aggressive Expansion

**"Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)" by Eurythmics.**

_Sweet dreams are made of this, who am I to disagree  
I travel the world and the seven seas  
Everybody's looking for something  
Some of them want to use you, some of them want to get used by you  
Some of them want to abuse you, some of them want to be abused._

* * *

Aggressive Expansion.

Crane set down the rucksack on Alice's floor, once again thanking his past self for being so prudent about back up plans. A second gas mask, hidden with his toxin cylinders in the warehouse crate, was certainly a handy thing to have. He knelt and unzipped the bag just once more to admire its contents. The wrist contraption that he had managed to salvage, converting the liquefied concoctions into powerful streams of vapour, glinted up at him.

Since she had gone out he had been forming a plan – a plan containing ideas which had occurred to him days ago – which his own fear had until now suppressed as mere observations.

But for all the trouble she'd caused him, Alice had also granted him the greatest gift that anyone could ever offer him.  
She had granted him confidence. Gift-wrapped, concrete confidence.

His trip to the warehouse in broad daylight hadn't been too difficult – the route was all back alleys and dodgy areas. Nobody was there to see him except for other lowlife criminals, also avoiding the law. But still – he could easily have waited until nightfall. Why had he risked himself to obtain his equipment just a few hours earlier? Perhaps because he was afraid Gordon would find it first. Perhaps it was the tingling sensation he'd had that things weren't going to stay this way forever. The assurance that Alice offered him of a relationship, of a safe harbour, had only set him on edge in fear of losing it all. It had put things in perspective. Sooner or later Gordon would find him, or somebody else would break into the flat and recognise him. He realised that he didn't have months or even weeks to wait around in hiding. It was more like days. And after what Alice had said, was Crane going to surrender in a quivering heap at the Commissioner's feet when the time came? Or was he going to prepare himself for a fight Gordon wouldn't forget, and hopefully wouldn't win?

Because it all rested on Gordon. The protector of Gotham. The only man of intelligence and means to match the Batman.

Footsteps echoing down the corridor caused him to jolt. It couldn't be her – she hadn't been out long enough. Was Gordon out on the prowl, without his encumbering droves of idiots? The drum of footfalls was sharp, fast-paced, business-like.

Crane clipped the device around his arm, inserted a cylinder, and pulled the sleeve of his hoodie down over it. The mask, small and efficient, went into his pocket. Armed as such he felt suddenly bolder, more like his old self. Scarecrow. He would never assume that alias again, but the hard spirit of the creature lived on, injecting strength into his limbs. He moved into a subtly defensive position, ready to block, counter, strike out.

Even so, his heart seemed to kick-start as the door was pushed slowly open.  
Whoever it was, they were definitely after him.

Just another inch wider and he would discover his opponent. He swallowed, though his throat was dry.

He gasped.

"Alice?"

She didn't reply. She was just standing in the doorway, staring at him.

He lowered his gaze uncomprehendingly to her outstretched hand, in which there sat her gun, once again pointed at him.  
And clutched in her other hand, at her side – a sheet of paper, crumpled, as though it had been violently treated.

It took another look at her face for him to register that her wide eyes were bright with unshed tears.

"You're quite the _celebrity_ today, Todd," she bit between clenched teeth, her expression a mask of tranquillity. "I found this pasted to a wall up by the Park, with about a thousand others just like it. Would you like me to read it out?"

Shaking the page flat, with the gun still trained on his heart, she tossed her head defiantly and began in loud, unforgiving, powerful tones.

"Police Department of Gotham City. Wanted: Jonathan Crane. Alias: Scarecrow. Look Todd, they've got a photograph to go with your physical description, just in case anybody _didn't know what you looked like_."

She turned the sheet so that he could see his own face glaring back at him.  
He said nothing. There was nothing to say.  
He honestly didn't know how he was going to react, when he eventually did.

"_Should be considered armed and dangerous. _Crane was diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder at Arkham Asylum, and was transferred to Blackgate Prison on charges of murder, illegal drug distribution, and assisting in terrorist attacks on Gotham city. The former Professor of Clinical Psychiatry is skilled in manipulation – and may be carrying an incapacitating fear toxin. _Do not approach or engage with him_. If whereabouts known, notify Gotham State police immediately."

She'd been reading from mere glances, all the while keeping her attention on him so that he couldn't approach. Now she let the paper drop, steadying the gun with both hands, and fixed him with a stare so piercing that he actually feared her.

"So," she managed. "This puts a bit of a dent in our relationship, don't you think?"

Words failed him. From within, from Jonathan, there emerged a pang of something like regret. He saw straight through her brave façade. She was wounded, bewildered, betrayed, in the way only a well-meaning and trustworthy person could feel. But he couldn't show it, he couldn't give her an inch of ground. Anything he said from now on would be taken as more manipulation – which, in many ways, was accurate.

Her lips began to tremble.

"I don't suppose there's any chance – that this is a horrible mistake? Or a joke?"  
He didn't have to answer. She just gripped the gun tighter.  
"I should have killed you," she spat. "The second I first saw you I should have bashed your skull in."  
Another pause.  
Her features scrunched up as she hissed, "I let you into my _room _last night! I _comforted _you! I was going to – I was going to let you – fucking hell. _Fuck_."

He waited for the instant when she would lose her focus. Her emotions were beginning to weaken her.

"_I trusted you with everything_." Her breath hitched with restrained sobs. "I let you read my _book_, I told you about _Charlie_, I _fell asleep_ against you – in the same room as you – I told you to do something bigger with your life... I can't – I don't believe it. I don't have – _words_ for you."

Jonathan was straining with all his might to break free, to take control, to explain everything to her.  
He wanted it to stop. He wanted her arms around him like before, soothing, affectionate.  
He couldn't understand the notion that it would never happen again.

"Todd," she said for the last time, and it almost moved him to insanity. "I can't believe he isn't real. He was so _real_. You – you really played it perfectly. You really had me thinking you were a misunderstood saint or something. I thought I was helping you, I thought I was changing your life around."

"You were," he replied before he could stop himself.

He sprang sideways – she swung the gun after him – he was zigzagging back towards her with a strange, calm swiftness like a hunter certain of its quarry – he braced himself for the shot – but it never came – she just stood like a deer in headlights – he knocked the gun from her hands – pulled the mask over his nose and mouth – thrust his wrist into her face – the gas consumed her – she coughed and choked, eyes wild with the frenzy of fear – after seconds it began to take hold, and he managed to clasp a hand around her mouth before the screams erupted, vibrating through his bones.

She sank, unable to support herself, and he slipped one arm around her waist to save her from falling. Her eyes focused upon his face not inches from her own, and the terror in her gaze electrified him from head to foot.

He shushed her softly, almost protectively.

The scrape of shoes dragging across the floor. The squeak of the couch as he relaxed into it, and cradled her body in his lap.  
"I'm sorry," he murmured, keeping his hand clamped over her mouth as he rocked her like a baby in a crib. "I know this doesn't make any difference. It can't be helped."

Crane and Jonathan peered into the depths of those darting silver eyes to glimpse the churning horror within, and both felt the cold shiver of morbid, gorgeous fascination crawling up their spine. This was the most satisfying attack they had ever witnessed, the most delicious, the most stimulating.

"Alice," he whispered with unconcealed hunger in his voice. "Tell me what you see. I know it's not your sister. What you fear most can't be something from the past. People are afraid of what's coming to get them. What's hiding in the dark, waiting to strike. What's coming to get you, Alice? Tell me. Tell me what you're most afraid of."

She didn't need to speak – or scream – the word. Her stare told him everything, everything he wanted to hear.

"Ahh, Alice," he sighed with deep satisfaction, like somebody licking their fingers after a hearty meal. "Of course it's _me_. It's what you've told me to become, what you know is going to happen, isn't it? You're a smart girl. You're very right to be afraid. They don't call me the Master of Fear for nothing."

He brushed her corkscrew curls away from her face as she jerked and hyperventilated in his unbreakable grip.  
Fascinating. Some people became so strong when they were most terrified.  
Alice simply turned into a helpless lamb.

After all that gusto, all that unflappable nonchalance, his potions worked wonders to show her true interior. A young girl frozen with terror, for all the running that she did, all over the globe. She could run from her family and she could run from her lovers, but she could never run from herself, and she definitely could not run from Jonathan Crane.

"It's too bad for you. You chose to let me into your head – the _one person_ you should never have allowed in there. You've given me a whole toolkit to work with, Alice. I know so much about you, and I want to find out more. I don't need toxins to make face your worst nightmares, to expose the things that you can't bear about yourself."

He tucked her head under his chin – as she had done to him only that morning – and giggled aloud to himself.

"After I'm done with you, every fanciful invention you ever used to cover up the truth will be gone. You'll be free. And then you'll know what it's like to be me. You'll see things in a new light, and it won't be all bad, I promise. It will be liberating. You'll want to take back all the power that you never had, from all those people who held you back. All those people below us. I will be able to give you just that, because I have a plan to take over this city. I'll fix things for us, very soon. We'll be the King and Queen of Gotham – you'll have the best of everything, including me – the best match you'll ever find, the only one who can give you what you will crave. Revenge. Authority. Worship. Losing your innocence to me will be the best thing that's ever happened to you. You're worth that effort, Alice, because you are the only person to ever really see me, to care for me despite my past."

She was slipping into unconsciousness. The visions had worn her soul to a thread. He felt such warmth towards her.  
He uncovered her mouth, and bent to kiss it, as tenderly as a Prince would kiss a Sleeping Beauty.

"You said you were never going to let anyone make me feel like I wasn't good enough. You said you'd help me however you could," he breathed, lips brushing against hers as he spoke. "I still believe you. There's a reason you didn't fire that gun just now, Alice, and you know it. You know it. Subconsciously. But _consciously_ – well, I think I'm going to have to deal with you a little differently, before I can rescue you from yourself. You'll hate me, at first, but soon you'll see. You'll see why I have to force your worst fears on you."

Leaving her slumped on the couch, he stalked to the table and picked up one of the chairs. Rooting through the drawers, he unearthed the duct tape. Then he carried both into her room, grinning with anticipation all the way.

"Let's start by turning the tables, shall we?" he hummed as he began to strap her in. "Let's start with the small issue of your cleithrophobia, and just see where it takes us. You could be cured within the week – if you're made of the right stuff."

* * *

Reviews are always appreciated :)


	24. You Complete Me

**"Bright Lights" by Placebo.**

_Cast your mind back to the days, when I pretended I was okay__**  
**__I had so very much to say,__about my crazy living__**  
**__Now I am trying to break free, be in a state of empathy  
Find the true and inner me, eradicate this schism  
No-one can take it away from me, and no-one can tear it apart  
Because a heart that hurts is a heart that works._

* * *

You Complete Me

[Alice's POV]

The entire world is a nightmare. It swims and screams and creeps and snarls. It surrounds me. I am past the point of struggle. I can no longer feel my bones, my muscles. The end looms, black and bloody and violent, and all I can do is wait.

_Wake up, darling. You've slept for long enough._

As a light shatters on the horizon, I realise that I know who the voice belongs to.

The logic of the universe is shifting. I am returning to a place I once knew, long ago. A trail of icy dread sneaks down my spine, and I open my eyes with the concrete feeling that things here are just as bad as they were back there.

For a moment I am lost in rays of light. Sharp, arctic blue light. Two black pits gape out from the stunning colour.  
His eyes. So close to my eyes, so intent that he could be boring holes into me with his mind.  
Warmth on the side of my face – his fingertips, tender as a lover's.

Scarecrow.

He evades me easily as I try to strike my forehead against his face. His low snicker rebounds off my bedroom walls.

"Easy, sweetheart," he soothes condescendingly. "There's no need."  
"_Fuck off_."  
"I know you're angry. I would be."  
"_You psycho son of a bitch_!"  
"Right on both counts," he smiles, taking me aback. "I don't know if you remember anything that I said?"  
I bare my teeth. "Vividly."  
"Ah, good. It saves me explaining all over again." He kneels to level his gaze with mine. "I hope it wasn't too bad."

My stomach flares hot, as his expression contracts with – what seems like – genuine concern.

"Don't play any more fucking games with me," I growl.  
"I held you until you lost consciousness. I tried to make it easier."  
"You're twisted! You know that? You're insane!"  
"Yes, I'm aware. I do have several degrees in that area."  
"Ha! So much for _Business Studies_."

I didn't want to say that. I shouldn't be showing him how hard Todd's loss has hit me.  
I shouldn't be showing any cracks in my violent front at all.

Again the look comes into his face, his brow drawing down to shade his eyes, lips compressed.  
"That was about the only false thing in my whole alibi," he says quietly.  
"_No_," I shoot back. "Don't think for a _second _that I'm going to trust _anything _you say."  
"Alice, how are we supposed to rebuild this relationship without trust?"

My mouth opens and closes a few times in a way that would be comic, if the situation wasn't so seriously fucked up.

"Why are you talking at me like I want anything to do with you?" I ask, voice hoarse with disbelief.  
"Alice, I'm hurt."  
"I'm glad. I've got a shitload more where that came from."  
He stiffens. Leans in slowly. "Have you thought about the position you're in, right now?"  
"No, I hadn't noticed that I was strapped to a chair, actually. Thanks for pointing it out."  
"I am not joking." The concern quickly melts into hostility. "I'd be very careful about what you say to me."  
"Why should I pretend any different? You'd only see past it. You're Scarecrow, aren't you? So then."

He seems to wince away, minutely.  
"I'm not Scarecrow."  
"No?"  
"No, and I'd prefer it if you didn't refer to me as such."  
"Really. What should I call you, then?"

Another pause.  
My eyebrows lift in defiance.

"Don't you know who you are, Todd?"

No, he doesn't like that name either. Who knows why. He came up with it himself.  
I take the thought and store it away – there's something at work here, behind that cool façade of his.

"I do admire you," he grins suddenly, patting my knee, "for being honest. You're right. I would have seen past it."  
"But your big plan is to _turn me around_, if I heard correctly."  
"You won't be talking about it with such disdain, soon enough."  
"Don't get your hopes up."

He shakes his head and laughs a small laugh.  
"We'll see. We will."  
"Would you mind getting out of my personal space?" I snap, cocking my head.  
"Since you ask so nicely."

Floating to his feet as gracefully as a ghost, he retreats to the door and sinks down with his back against it. Just before sitting properly, he pulls something out of the back pocket of those jeans I swiped for him, and places it on the floor.  
It's my gun.

"Don't worry," he smirks as I tense automatically. "I'm not going to use it – yet. This is just so you know it's there."  
"So kind of you."  
"I notice you haven't screamed for help."  
"I'm not an idiot."  
"No," he agrees, "you're not the average damsel in distress. It's keeping you alive, you know."  
"What's that got to do with anything?"

His lips twitch. "Everything. You're not like the others."  
"I'm not like _you_. Don't even _think_ about saying it."  
"Alice. You know me better than that."  
"Fuck you."

He sighs as though dealing with a stubborn infant, running a hand over his stubbled chin.

"You haven't asked to be let go, either."  
"Of course I haven't."  
"You could always give it a go. You never know."  
"Oh, I know."  
"See? You know me like the back of your own hand. We did make such a connection."  
"Would you stop fucking referring to _us_. There is no _we_. That ended when you turned out to be Jonathan _Crane_."

A spasm of pain crosses like a shadow over his face.  
It's a trick, and it only makes me more mad.

"I'll say it again, Alice," he murmurs, "almost everything I told you is true."  
"Oh really."  
"Business Studies, the bank job – that's all the fibbing I did. To make my alibi work."  
"Why would someone like you be _honest _with me?"

He doesn't reply, because he wants me to think about it for myself.  
Goddammit. I do know him better than I'd admit.

I know that if his story is true, about how he grew up, then it's a reason in itself for telling me everything. Todd was alone for so long. He needed someone to listen. That was where I came in, the first person willing to give him the time of day.

And is it so hard to believe that a childhood like his could turn somebody into a vicious criminal? It makes sense that autism could lead to a lack of empathy for victims… that those years of being bullied and ignored could have incubated a deep resentment that would eventually call for revenge. It makes perfect, _perfect_ sense that a child deprived of confidence and authority in every aspect of his life could grow up to be a man capable of doing anything to gain power.

"Would you like to hear the rest of the story?" he hums almost musically, like a performer warming up.

I consider. First of all, it will buy me precious time. Perhaps that detective is on his trail right now.  
Second, I am wary of carrying on in impossible circles with an obviously deranged and dangerous man.  
And third… if his alibi so far is really truthful… I'm a little curious to hear the rest.  
It's not every day you get to hear the confessions of a most wanted mastermind terrorist.

He quirks a smile, letting the locks of dark hair fall back as he leans his head against the door, and begins with or without my assent.

"You've gathered that I studied Psychology at college. Remember I told you about my outbursts in class? I'd go for weeks without saying anything. Wishing I never _had _said anything. And then it would build up again, this pressure, this feeling that I was melting away because nobody noticed me. I had to get noticed. So I would crack again. Professors would just stand and stare at me while I reeled off all this information. And then I'd retreat."

His tone is just as expressive as before. Perfectly pitched, every word.  
Damn. He's good.

"One thing I couldn't tell you about was my search for a cure. A cure for my fear. My particular brand of fear. All the current treatments are useless. By the time Dad showed up I had already applied for a Masters, because – I was terrified of going out into the world, you know? A job, or being jobless, and having to go back to my mother. No. I couldn't stand it. So I started a course in Psychopharmacology, the aim being to find a hormone that would suppress fear without depersonalising me." He chuckles humourlessly. "Whatever personality I had left, I was desperate to keep. A year on, I was accepted for a PhD to continue my research. It was useless. I'll admit that now. Not even I could do it. I just didn't have access to the right compounds, and those I tried to create were never enough. The strain – the fear of failure – it built up, month after month. I'd study, I'd be almost bodiless, I wouldn't talk to anyone. Then I would do reckless things. Holding dangerous experiments in my room, that was the _least_ stupid. I'd drink myself into hospital. I'd go out to stand on the edges of bridges, buildings, telling myself to jump off. _Fear_ – I could never get away from it. Fear of dying. Fear of living."

I shift slightly, trying to get comfortable. My neck is aching from the weird angle I've been sleeping.

"Are you alright?" he interrupts his own story, and rises nimbly before crossing behind me to the bed.  
I twist my head to watch him – and that's when I notice that my chair is duct taped solidly to the bars of my bedstead.  
I can't move anywhere in this room, at all.

As the realisation finally hits and the adrenaline rushes back, it begins to feel like I can't breathe either.

"Ssshhh, here now." He wedges a pillow behind my head. "Keep it together. Don't freak out on me."  
"I'm trapped in a chair," I state blankly, trying to hang on to my sanity. "I'm trapped in a chair. Seriously."  
"I was wondering when your cleithrophobia would begin to show."  
"My what?"  
"You have a phobia of being unable to escape from places. It's why you do what you do. Because of Charlie."

He seats himself again, and regards me with a chilly glint of fascination in his eyes.

"So this is a convenient torture method for you, is it? Apart from the _practical_ reasons for tying me up," I spit.  
"It's part of your progression."  
"Towards becoming your brainwashed slave, yeah, I get it."  
"Towards becoming my equal, Alice. I want so much more for you than slavery."  
"Funny how you say that and I'm covered in duct tape."  
"You must know restraint to recognise freedom."  
"That's just code for _I'm going to totally fuck your mind over_."

He looks disappointed.

"You gave me something I'd never experienced. Like I said, you're worth the effort."  
"Whatever I gave you wasn't for _you_. It was for Todd."  
"But I _am_ Todd. Todd shares my past. This is what I'm trying to explain to you, Alice. You saw past my faults and you saw something worth loving, and so _I _became worthy of love. Don't you see it? You gave me confidence in myself, to attain my goals without anyone's support but yours. You are all I need, to reach my potential. You're the only person that I could stand to have in my life, to exist alongside me, as my partner."

I bite back an ugly retort.

He almost motions towards me, as though something else is attempting to control his body, reaching for me.  
His hunger for affection, for communion, is completely confusing. Disconcerting.  
He genuinely wants me to approve of him. He craves my comfort.

_No_. A trick. It's all part of the game.

He's following my line of thought just from the slightest alterations in my expression. He knows everything.  
And for once he doesn't look smug about it. Apparently my opinion is important to him.  
I suppose it must be, if he really wants to convert me.

Why would he _want_ to convert me? If I wasn't precious to him in some way, why bother?  
Does he need an assistant in his psycho plans?

Or does he genuinely care that I wantto remain by his side, protecting him emotionally? Am I really the one ray of hope that he still clings to, the one relationship that hasn't been entirely negative, for the first time in his life? Am I some kind of superior being, to him? Am I really some kind of surrogate mother, girlfriend, chance-of-a-normal-life?

What would a psychopath need with a normal life?  
Well… psychopaths are still human.

Which brings me right back to the question of his story, and its authenticity.  
I still don't know, so I figure it's best to keep my mouth shut and give as little away as possible.

He sees the resolve in my face, and breathes deeply before resuming.

"I began teaching as a Professor of Psychology at the university. No break from the PhD. It was the only job I felt secure with applying for. I became Doctor Crane. No more Jonathan. Nobody to call me that. It was like he died. Just sort of fizzed out of existence, like I was so afraid of doing. As Doctor Crane I realised that I'd taken on an entirely new role in society. A role that demanded power, control over the student body. It was the strangest experience of my life, bar the hooker."

He lowers his head and runs a hand through his hair with a small, awkward laugh.

"People _listened_ to me. On my first day – I was so frightened I didn't talk to anybody unless I absolutely had to – and for some reason, by some miracle, people took it as a sign of authority, or put me in the category of _mysterious young teacher_. Girls whispered and giggled and – physically _blushed_ – in my classes. I had students trying to impress me in their assignments, after hearing my lectures. Apparently they recognised my depth of knowledge, as my classmates had. I have to tell you – it went to my head a little. I mean, who wouldn't feel flattered, and then, eventually, proud? It gave me even more of an edge over people. They started to feel _daunted _by me. I was – the most happy I'd ever been. My failed research stopped bothering me. Now I had something greater than the _suppression _of fear. I had power, and that swept all my fears clean away. What is there to fear, when you finally have what you've always wanted, when your nightmares have been proven wrong? I began to learn exactly why Brandon had loved to taunt me. I fell in love, with the idea of inspiring fear in other people. I was sort of parcelling it out, from my own mind, into theirs. I had so much fear to give away. But I never pushed it past a certain point. I became strict and formidable, I threatened people about their grades, but I kept to conventions. Then the first semester of my _second_ year started. My old students had moved upwards. But all of _my_ lectures would have to be repeated. I began to realise that I would never get beyond this, I would never be anything but a Professor. That frightened the hell out of me. I _hated_ being _stuck_. I have always craved progress. How was I supposed to advance, no matter how much I studied – and I had studied almost everything in my field – how was I supposed to become greater, more powerful? I was on edge. I started to really hate my job. So I began to try out new methods of teaching, recklessly. I was sacked just a week into the term. I asked a student to assist me during a lecture, and held him at knife point, to demonstrate real fear to the class. They didn't like that one bit. I wasn't actually going to hurt him – I would never have dreamed of it – he left the room screaming, but without a scratch on him."

I'm beginning to be glad of the pillow. It's really easing the strain on my neck.  
Funny, how the little things can be used to influence you in the biggest ways.

"This was just the key to my revelation. It opened my eyes to what I really wanted. When I thought of revenge, I was more alive than I'd ever been. Suppressing fear was a silly notion, a childish notion. You can't conquer fear. It's our strongest instinct. To live without fear is to give up living altogether. So I bided my time, thinking up ways to make them pay, and an image kept coming back to me. My father's old scarecrow. The feeling I had when I put the burlap over my head and chased those birds clear out of their wits. And my mother's expression – how shocked, terrified she'd been."

He paused. "You know, it's amazing what you can do to a university's board of governors with a stitched scarecrow mask – appearing and disappearing in unexpected places, that kind of thing. I used a silencer on the gun – always shot to miss – and I was never caught. I picked out places that made it easy to escape. Just a bit of strategy, that's all I needed. By the end of two weeks they were all gibbering messes. I even saw one of them again, in my next job. It really surprised me that nobody connected Doctor Crane to all this. And I already had a plan for my next career move. Who else would more willingly employ an erratic Professor of Psychology than Arkham Asylum? They saw me as the particular brand of unorthodox genius that they needed. Someone with drive. Someone who had the guts to handle violent, criminal patients. I was just the man for the job."

His breath hangs in the air between us for a while. He's struggling as though over the brink of something, something that he won't be able to come back from. His electric blue gaze crosses with mine, filling the moments with tension. I realise that I am still attracted to him – that I can still see some of the things I was beginning to love – and my stomach twists sickeningly.

"I settled in fine. Things were exciting. People were excited about _me_, about the fresh resources of knowledge I'd be bringing to their establishment. New blood. The patients were exciting too. All kind of crazy. Knowing me, I should have been afraid. But there were guards – not to mention that showing fear would have been a mistake. These people knew how to intimidate, all the tricks in the trade. I began to study them as a hobby on the side, during interviews, to collect their particular types. What sort of fear did they attempt to instil? What were their techniques?"

He nodded at me. "Yes, my story about getting into drug dealing was a lie. I actually fell into the criminal life at Arkham. I'd gotten restless at the university after just a year. This time around, it only took me about six months before the novelty of authority wore off. The job was repetitive – aren't they all? I felt wasted, handing out drugs to these lowlifes over and over, categorically, correctly. I craved a bit of chaos. More than that – I wanted to step out into the unknown. _But I was terrified of leaving university_, you're thinking. Surely I couldn't _handle_ the unknown. But this was different – I had a secure job. I just wanted to do more research. Get effective results. _Do _something worth remembering, without the pressure of public failure hanging over me. And the patients were just sitting there like ready-made lab rats. They weren't worth anything to anybody. Most of them were nasty things, full of evil. I began to experiment on them after hours, tentatively at first. I was itching to try out my own ideas, new recipes, in my field of work. What would this certain cocktail of pills produce? How did ratios affect the patients' levels? I synthesised new compounds, named my new creations, and recorded their effects to the last detail. I always finished up with a strong sedative to wipe all memories of their experiences away. The aim, really, was the art of instilling fear. I'd become addicted to that feeling. Not the feeling of power, as such – but the feeling you get when you _watch _somebody else caught up in the throes of terror, because of you. When they eyeball you like you're an eight foot grizzly bear, or a murderer. I wasn't a murderer. I had never done anybody _real _harm. Not like they had harmed _me_, nothing even close. But I liked to feel as though I was capable of those things, because it made me strong. It made me fearless.

"Terror can be as good a cover as sedatives. There was a general feeling among the patients that I wasn't a man to be trifled with. That I had secrets they didn't want to be involved in, or had the feeling they'd already been involved in and didn't want to remember why. One day, I came up against someone different. Someone who spoke directly to me about my experimental work, in a private interview. He told me that his boss would be very interested in me – that he'd been looking for someone just like me, in fact. He could expand my horizons, offer me opportunities to experiment properly with drugs more potent than I'd ever dreamed of, in terms of my aims. I ignored him. He kept dropping hints."

His hands quiver as he folds them in front of him. "I already knew that I hated my life. I already knew that there was something in me that couldn't be fixed – I was hungry for revenge on the world. It was only a matter of time before I allowed him to sway me. Falcone, he said, was shipping in a lot of stuff at the moment. But Falcone wasn't the big bad boss, as much as he thought that he ran this city. My patient was working with him on behalf of a much more upmarket type. The type with ideas. Ideas that would change the world.

"I met Falcone, eventually, after a lot of telephone calls with his informal secretaries and his organisers. They made sure I was the real deal. I'm surprised that I wasn't scared shitless. I was getting in deep, very quickly. But I was certain that I was meant for this, that I couldn't go on as I had. Carmine Falcone treated me with contempt, insulted me mildly, and sent me directly to the man whose choice it really was to employ me… Ra's al Ghul. The greatest man I've ever met. If only you could have heard him speak, Alice. He explained everything to me – what the plan really was and what the drug could really do, how he wanted it to be synthesised. His employee in Arkham Asylum was there, he said, because of some experiments that had backfired. They just didn't have anyone with the capacity to make it work as he hoped it would. I told him that I could do it, and I had patients to spare at Arkham. He said, be careful. Once you agree to this there's no going back. I said, I know, that's the point. And that was the only meeting we ever had. He gave me a free reign with the experiments, and all the money I needed to pay off security guards.

"I dealt just with Falcone for a while, taking the drugs as told and keeping his thugs out of jail in return. He didn't care what we were smuggling as long as we didn't get caught. But Ra's started to correspond with me through his affiliates, about my progress. He raised me above Falcone's petty level. I only continued to put those brutes in the asylum to keep the deal sweet.

"Finally, I was doing great things. Ra's told me what I'd needed to hear all my life. Humanity is a cesspool of filth and crime and useless emotions. What have any of them ever done to prove their humanity to me? The bullies, my parents, my employers, women. All the same, really. Not like Ra's or the League or myself. Gradually, my fear of people, of their rejection, began to fade out. Instead I felt contempt. And then, as I realised they weren't worth even that, I began to feel nothing at all. Nothing for anybody but Ra's, and even he was only a distant heroic figure, like a Greek myth. Impersonal.

"And then, the Batman ruined everything. He used my own toxin on me – I was locked up in my own Asylum. Of course I was set free by Ra's' men, but that didn't pan out as I'd planned either. Gotham survived, everybody who should have died was still alive, and I was assistant to a dead terrorist. I was most wanted – a criminal – without a clue how to defend myself in the criminal world. I'd always had his protection. I think – I would rather have stayed in the Asylum than been left out on the street. This hollow, unforgiving world was full of poverty, and no prospects. No jobs. I'd driven Falcone insane, I had literally no employers. I couldn't go back to my old life. I couldn't even go to the Asylum now. The Narrows was lost. Everybody they caught was sent straight to Blackgate. The only thing for it was to push on, to wade into more crime, and act like I knew what I was doing. I sold more of my fear elixir to the mob, pretending it was some new wonder drug. They didn't like that. I was getting bored again, bored of the lowness I had stooped to, bored of never feeling a thing, not for anyone, not for myself, not even fear any more. The Batman actually showed up just in time to save me from an angry customer. He performed the most thrilling capture. Exhilarating. I even thought I was going to get away, at one point. And all the time the adrenaline flooded through me. I was terrified. It was the most fun I'd had in ages.

"I spent eight and a half years in that prison. Can you even begin to conceive, to imagine, what that means to a person? Up to a year, or two years, you could still get out feeling vaguely like a human being, they say. I didn't have much of a chance even to start with. But eight years and six months, the monotony, the drudgery. Being treated like a force of evil – a weak and powerless force of evil – having every privilege taken away – all because I had believed in Ra's al Ghul. The greatest man who ever lived. The man who showed me everything in its true light. They had never heard him speak, so they could never understand. But they assumed that I was unreachable, that my soul was a void, that I had no capacity for emotion whatsoever. It was all true. They were right to think it. But still – if somebody had acted differently – if just once a guard had spoken kindly to me, or brought me a blanket, or asked _why I had done everything that I did_… If any of them had been anything like _you… _Perhaps I wouldn't have slipped beyond salvation. Perhaps you and I would have a chance, Alice. But it's all too little too late. That person I used to be, that vulnerable boy you got to know so well – he exists, somewhere, in the past. But he's dead. And not even you can resurrect what's dead, Alice, darling. So you see, Bane's arrival was a blessing. Batman wasn't the only one to rise, during all that happened. Bane placed me in a position of power, a position to inflict pain and death wherever I chose to. I knew not to interfere in Bane's goals, not to push any further than the court, but I was happy. Order had been restored to the world, because I was back at the top. I was the puppeteer again, and not the puppet.

"Imagine my horror, Alice, when that bomb went off and the city was somehow safe. Imagine me sitting there, in that kangaroo court, wondering whether my loyal subjects would turn on me, even now. Imagine the awful realisation that Bane was dead, and it was _my_ head on a platter that Gordon wanted. That I was being hunted by the canniest cop in town. Don't ask me how he didn't find me. I hardly know myself. All I know is that I thought on my feet – hiding out in the dingiest areas, where people wouldn't be moving back in for a while, would be the safest option at present. I ran to the first appropriate building, kicked down a door, and…"

He shrugs subtly, as if to say, _you know the rest_.

There is a long and dizzy moment where he waits for me, for some kind of reaction.  
When it becomes clear to him that I won't be speaking any time soon, a smile, small at first, twists one corner of his mouth and then begins to spread. He leaps up from the ground like a jack-in-the-box, clapping his hands together in delight. I don't even flinch as he springs lithely towards me and reaches to cradle my chin in his hand.

"Alice, Alice!" he croons. "I thought I'd figured you out! I thought I'd solved your mystery. Look at you. What a poker face you've got there, I must admit, I'm stumped. I have to say I was genuinely worried for you, that there was nothing more to you than this. Charlie, Gotham, your job. I was concerned you'd turn out to be a one-trick pony just liked the rest of them. You haven't disappointed me. Thank you. Honestly. You're going to be alright, in the end, you know? I'm going to look after you. I'm going to turn your life around. Return the favour, as it were. You and me – it's going to be one never-ending adventure. Who knows if I'll ever be able to put my finger on you, eh? You darling thing."

His kiss is brief and warm and intense with the energy coursing through him. It throws me. I don't have time to react before he's danced away from me again.

"You don't need a bathroom break, do you? No? Good. I have to go and take care of a few things now, I'm afraid. I've spent so much time talking with you! Time really does fly when you're with the right person, doesn't it? But as they say – absence makes the heart grow fonder. Perhaps when I get back you'll be prepared to be… more open with me."

He scoops up the gun, throws me a conspiring wink, opens the door and disappears behind it. Seconds later, I hear the lock click.

* * *

I hope you enjoyed Alice's POV, though she didn't give all that much away about her thoughts and feelings! Reviews are appreciated so much!


	25. I'm Not a Hero

'**Psychotic Reaction' by Ride.**

_I feel depressed, I feel so bad, 'cause you're the best girl that I ever had  
I can't get your love, I can't get a fraction  
Uh-oh, little girl, psychotic reaction  
I feel so lonely night and day - I can't get your love, I must stay away  
I need you girl, by my side  
Uh-oh, little girl, would you like to take a ride, now  
I can't get your love, I can't get satisfaction  
Uh-oh, little girl, psychotic reaction._

* * *

I'm Not a Hero

He was halfway across the linoleum floor when he remembered, and turned on his heel to unlock her door again.

"How embarrassing," he grinned, tucking the gun under the waistband of his jeans behind him. "I'm so forgetful."  
His eyes found their target, still sitting in the middle of the room, unmoved.  
With a violent contraction in his stomach he registered the expression on her heart-shaped face.

Of course she would have let her guard down the second he'd left. She'd been straining just to hold it up in front of him. Now she stared up at him, cheeks strewn with moisture that she couldn't brush away, eyes wide and tragic under gently sloping brows, lips parted in a look of utter desolation and misery. So innocent, indecently abused, isolated in her fear. He recognised that countenance, he knew it in the depths of his memory. It was written over every inch of his rotting core. The pages of his history were unfurling right in front of him.

That split second of weakness was all it took for Jonathan to pounce, to shoot like toxin through his limbs and overtake him. In Alice's face he saw the echo of his own transformation, her response to his every minute movement, her wariness.

He stumbled to her feet, his knees hitting the carpet sharply, and buried his face in her lap like a child.

"Alice I'm sorry, he made me do it, he's making me do it, I can't do anything –"  
"What are you doing?" she interrupted, voice hardening.  
"It's Crane," he whimpered, clinging to her as best he could. "Crane is doing this. He's trapped us both."  
"What are you talking about?" she almost screamed. "Why are you _still _trying to fuck me up?"  
"No no, Alice, no -"  
"Get off me!"

He forced himself to lift his gaze, looking into her face as the first of his own tears spilled over.  
She glared down, expression blank with shock, taken aback by his sincere grief.

"Todd?" she asked after a long silence.  
He shook his head fiercely. "It's me. It's Jonathan."

Another pause. She just kept looking at him, and he basked in her contemplation with the pure excruciating joy of her recognition, of being seen for himself, not Todd, not Crane, not Scarecrow. He felt too light, a little giddy, and so afraid that he could barely move. Crane was still clawing for control. He could only hold him off for so long.

"You said," she thought aloud at last, "you said that when you started teaching – you left Jonathan behind."  
"Please listen to me."  
"When you say Jonathan, do you mean – before everything happened – when you still had a chance? _Jonathan_?"  
"I'm weak, Alice, and he's so strong. I let him take over. He helped me survive."

Alice retreated into a deep, intense silence. He remained where he was, in his position of supplication, waiting for her judgement. Did she trust him? Would she reject him? The thought alone was enough to produce fresh streams from his wide eyes. How could he possibly go on existing if she didn't believe in him? He would become all Crane, masked and consumed by that chilly exterior. He would cease to be worth anything except for his conquests, his power to destroy.

Would it be all that bad? Anaesthetised and unaware that he was ever human? What he didn't know couldn't hurt him, after all.  
Was it worth losing his soul to relieve himself of the agony?

She finally spoke. "That's how you managed to play Todd so well. You were trying to get out, through him."

She trusted him. She had chosen his continued existence. He felt dizzy, and not altogether sure how he felt.  
"Sometimes, yes. But I need to tell you –"

She had latched onto her belief in him, however, and her brain was working at top speed with this new idea, searching for an advantage.

"You don't want him to hurt me, Jonathan," she said abruptly, "we can work together. We can stop him."  
"It's not that simple –"  
"Jonathan, I need you to untie me."

She was deadly serious, desperately urgent. Her silver eyes pleaded with him more forcefully than her words could. Those eyes that had once looked into his with warmth, intimacy, affection. With a glance she offered him all of these things anew. She would protect him. She would love him. He would finally be loved – and none of this would be necessary. That was all he wanted, really, wasn't it? To be loved? To be respected?

Wasn't it?

He trembled against her. His hands shook, slowly – slowly – towards the bindings around her right wrist.

"You'll run from me," he half stated, half questioned, in an agonised whisper.  
Her silence was infinite, terrifying.  
He refused to break his gaze. "You can't trust me. There's no reason for you to stay."

She took a breath, and looked as though she would have lain her hand on his, if she could have.

"Jonathan," she murmured, "I want to help you. I've always wanted to help you. Please let me."  
"I don't understand."  
"If you let me go now, we'll have to make some choices. Either you will have to let me walk out of that door –"  
"No."  
"Or we will have to go together, and find people who can help you."  
"_No_," he growled abruptly. "I'm not like him, Alice, but I've only broken out because of you. I can't let them take you from me."

She looked at him with real sadness. "Has he kept you caged up for that long? All those years?"

"I wasn't really – aware – of myself, until you woke me. It's hazy," he held his head in his hands, "I don't understand it. I don't know where I end and he begins. There aren't lines. Only shifts, in my head. Reality sort of slides back and forth. It's more like – I change my mind, or he changes it for me. I don't know. I don't know. I'm him, he's me, but he – he's a kind of anaesthetic. He kills everything that I feel, or warps it, or turns it against me. And he's so strong, Alice, he's going to win. I can't win because I always lose. It's what I do. It was only because of him that I became powerful. Then he didn't need me. Nobody's ever needed me."

He knew the words she would say before she even said them.  
"I need you."  
"You need me to set you free."

She shook her head slightly as her eyes began to well. "Jonathan, I need you to be the man I was falling in love with."

It was as if he had never known warmth before. It spread like an alien force throughout his chest, from his centre, filling him with something wholesome, something wonderful, something horrific. He was relieved. He was weak with relief. But while he opened his mouth to laugh, all that came out was a strangled sob. A whole stream of them followed closely behind as he hid his face against her leg, shoulders heaving with the weight of all those years, lost, wasted, written in stone. The years that had made him who he was, unalterably.

"And don't you dare say that was all for show, when you were Todd. I can see you now, and you're the same." She tried to lean down towards him, straining against the bonds. "I _care_ about you, Jonathan. I care what happens to you. I haven't let myself get attached to anybody – but I think this was all meant to happen, and even if it was coincidence, it was right. I think I'm here to help you. I _want _to help you. I don't want you to be alone. I wouldn't leave you, no matter what happened, you understand? Jonathan? Please, look at me – look in my eyes so I can tell you. Please."

He obeyed, though he could barely see, locking his features in their contorted shape to stop himself from breaking down.

"I love you," she said without hesitation.

His stomach pulled at him so ferociously that he folded right over into himself, crumpling like a ball of paper, slithering away from her as he sat heavily upon the carpet. His arms twisted like barbed wire around his knees and sucked them into his torso, tighter, tighter, as though trying to fill the all-consuming void that had opened up at his core.

_He is supporting himself against the doorframe because his legs won't hold him. A monster is trying to claw its way out of his mouth from where it's been living, down, deep down in his torso. He keeps forcing air out of himself, shrivelling his lungs in the effort to help it to escape. But it can't. It's a part of him. Every new breath he is made to take in only feeds it, feeds the monster and its desire to escape, until he feels as though it's cracking his ribs to tear its way out through his skin. He is aware of her, unmoving, looking on and not stirring a finger._

_"Why won't you hold me?" he pleads, sliding gradually down, down, until he crouches and holds himself instead, like a jigsaw, afraid that at any moment he will simply drop away and scatter into limbs and quarters.  
"I can't," her voice floats, descending like a feather. "It wouldn't mean anything."_

Jonathan drew in a breath so deep and fragile that it felt like the last breath of his life.  
Then the wailing began.

It was unlike anything he had ever heard, a drawn out 'aa' like the noise that somebody makes when they've been severely injured, played in slow motion. It wouldn't stop, and the void still gaped wide within him, and his arms wouldn't unwind from his legs.

"No," he realised he was saying. "No, no, no, no, no."  
Alice was crying his name over and over, the sound of their panic mingling.

"Jonathan! Come here – let me hold you, for fuck's sakes, Jonathan, let me hold you, I can't watch this. Jonathan!"

With an effort of will that surprised even him, he began to crawl towards her. He rose to his knees, arms reaching feebly. Finally he clung to her; she twisted her head to kiss his neck as his chin dug into her shoulder.

"Sssshhhh," her voice was soft as an embrace. "It's okay, sweetheart, you're okay. You're okay."

But he wasn't. He clutched at an unresponsive body. There were no arms to hold his torso in one piece. Where was the relief he needed? Where were her comforting, caressing hands, where was the press of her muscles against his back? Where were her arms? They were strapped down.

His fingers fumbled for the duct tape of their own accord.

She tried not to tense and she tried not to hold her breath, but he noticed it all anyway.  
The void in his stomach had become a cold weight, and for a fraction of a second he paused.

"Jonathan?" she asked, as she noticed that his sobs had quietened.  
Her throat was rich and guttural with fear.  
He could smell it on her skin.

Another silence, while he looked sternly at the hand he was about to untie, rigid as a statue.

"… Jonathan?"

With a short snap of the neck he flicked his hair away from his face, jaw tightening, limbs relaxing. Then he raised his eyes to her once more, and felt a deep satisfaction at the shock beginning to register on her face. One side of his mouth quirked upwards in a humourless smirk.

"Nice try," he hissed, and then rose fluidly to his feet. "You're better than I gave you credit for. But don't think that he's getting you out of this. He's not strong enough."

She was crestfallen, but she concealed it well.

"Is he alright?" she bit back. "What have you done to him?"  
"He told you, he and I are the same. He's just changed his mind again with my help."  
"So he can hear me when I say he's stronger than you. We're stronger than you. Me and him."  
Crane sniggered. "Obviously. That's why you're still strapped to a chair."

"Jonathan is on my side," she barked. "He knows I won't leave him. He knows I want to help him."  
"Do you? I thought your style was a stealthy exit, before things ever got too _intimate_."  
"You know I've haven't been close to anyone before Jonathan. Not for years. Now I can't leave him. I don't want to."  
"Sorry, sweetheart. Forgive us if we don't trust everything you say."  
"How are we supposed to rebuild this relationship without trust?" she echoed his earlier comment mockingly.

He frowned heavily at her. "You're making me late. I do have plans, you know. What was it I'd come back for? Oh – yes – that darling mouth of yours. I knew I'd missed a dash of duct tape somewhere."

"You could never offer Jonathan what I can give him," she shot as he reached for the roll. "What I want to give him."  
He paused. "Do you really think that?"  
"I can give him all the love he never had. I can give him happiness. For the rest of his life. You get the picture?"

Crane clutched his belly and laughed aloud, high-pitched and eerie.

"_I_ love Jonathan!" he cried joyfully. "_I_ gave him everything he needed. We're on the same team, him and I. Always have been. We know what's important in life. Power. Recognition. What difference does it make if an insignificant girl falls for us out of the blue?"

"It makes all the difference," she said quietly.

He took a step towards her suddenly, bending at the hips to lean in until his breath caressed her cheek.  
She flinched as she felt the cold muzzle of the gun pressed against her neck.

"See, you don't seem to take into account," he purred as he slid the barrel tenderly along her jaw, "that Jonathan and I want the same things. _Exactly _the same things."

Stopping just under her chin, he used the weapon to tilt her head back gently. Their lips were inches apart; he could see the vein in her throat pulsing beneath her honey skin. He looked down at her from beneath his lowered lids, with a gaze as serene and scorching as a snake's. Her stormy grey irises blinked back at him, wide and fearful and mesmerised.

"I never was one for _physicality_," his voice was husky and intimate, "I left it all with Jonathan. But then, I've never seen anybody dance like that before. You look stunning as a blonde, I mean, the red really suited you. I bet he would have paid you the money you stole from his pocket, if you'd asked. But where's the fun if you can't be a little risqué sometimes?"

The look she gave him would have made a lesser man cower. But he was the Master of Fear.

"You _stalked _me?" she hissed.  
"I was curious. I haven't had," he inched closer, "_sexual _attraction towards anyone since Jonathan first found me. I suppose all I needed was to trap myself in an apartment with an attractive stripper for a week. I _am_ only human, after all."  
"You're pathetic. You're not human. You're a monster in a human suit."

The index finger of his free hand rested lightly on her knee. He trailed it gradually, smoothly up her thigh as his blood began to rush and his breathing deepened sensually.

"The trouble is, Alice..." he lifted his hand abruptly to tuck a wayward strand of hair behind her ear, angling her face towards him. "The thing is that you can't deny it. You _love_ this human suit of mine, don't you? I've seen you looking. You were so ready to shed everything for me. Why do you think I stopped you? Or rather - Jonathan stopped you. To protect you from me. Because he knows I've caught your scent," he inhaled with relish, "and I'm game. It's irresistible. I'm sure you feel the same, I mean, it's got to have been a while since you last _got laid_. Like it or not, Alice, you want me. You know, you _know _that I would be _so _much more fun than your snivelling sweetheart. He wouldn't treat you like a woman. You want _me_ to control you, consume you, take you down into oblivion. All that running, and the one thing you really want is for me to pin you down. It's the submissive streak in you. I can tell you're that kind of girl."

He wasn't expecting the saliva that hit him square in the face a split second later.

"Alice," he sighed as he wiped it away with the sleeve of his hoodie, keeping the utmost composure. "I really thought you'd been brought up with more decorum than that."  
"I can't say the same for you."  
"No, you can't. But that's a jibe at Jonathan, not at me. I'd be careful what you say to him."

"Give him back to me," she snarled.  
"I'm afraid that's not possible."  
"You mean you're afraid to die so he can be human again."  
"I mean that I can't die. I'm as much a part of this body as he is." His voice soured. "Even if I wanted to escape, I'd have to take him with me. But why would I? There's still so much work to be done! – which reminds me."

He grasped the tape, tore off a strip, and finally placed it over her mouth. Kissing the plastic in mockery, he straightened to his full height and tucked the gun back into his jeans.

"If you'll excuse me, honey. I have a new name to make for myself in this town." He grinned widely at her. "New people to bargain with, new places to terrorise. Just another day at the office. I'll be back for dinner, so make sure it's on the table!"

Cool and collected, he spun on his heel once again and made the familiar trip to her bedroom door, diligently locking it behind him.

He wasn't lying when he'd said that he was off to make a new name for himself, or that he had people to bargain with.  
He already knew what his new-fangled alias would be. He had known for quite some time now.  
And as for bargains…

He was off to meet with the most powerful criminal in Gotham at present: Sofia Falcone herself.

* * *

So so sorry about the long wait! I've had tonnes of stuff going on recently. Hope you liked this chapter! As you know, reviews are always very welcome!


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